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THE  INQUISITION  OF  SPAIN 


WORKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 

A  HISTORY  OF  THE  INQUISITION  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 
In  three  volumes,  octavo. 

A  HISTORY  OF  AURICULAR  CONFESSION  AND  INDUL- 
GENCES IN  THE  LATIN  CHURCH.  In  three  volumes, 
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AN  HISTORICAL  SKETCH  OF  SACERDOTAL  CELIBACY  IN 
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tion.) 

A  FORMULARY  OF  THE  PAPAL  PENITENTIARY  IN  THE 
THIRTEENTH  CENTURY.  One  volume,  octavo.  {Out  of 
print. ) 

SUPERSTITION  AND  FORCE.  Essays  on  The  Wager  of  Law, 
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revised.     In  one  volume,  12mo. 

STUDIES  IN  CHURCH  HISTORY.  The  Rise  of  the  Temporal 
Power,  Benefit  of  Clergy,  Excommunication,  The  Early 
Church  and  Slavery.     Second  edition.     In  one  volume,  12mo. 

CHAPTERS  FROM  THE  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  SPAIN, 
CONNECTED  WITH  THE  INQUISITION.  Censorship  of 
the  Press,  Mystics  and  Illuminati,  Endemoniadas,  El  Santo 
Nifio  de  la  Guardia,  Brianda  de  Bardaxi.    In  one  volume,  12mo. 

THE  MORISCOS  OF  SPAIN,  THEIR  CONVERSION  AND 
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(ii) 


A    HISTORY 


OQUISITION  OF  SPAW 


BY 

HENRY  CHARLES  LEA,  LL.D. 


IN    FOUR    VOLUMES 


VOLUME  L 


Hew   l^orft 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 

1908 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1906, 

Bt  the  macmillan  company. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  January,  1906.    Reprinted 
September,  1908. 


FROMTHELIBRAIWOP 
UARSHALL  B.  KERNOCHAN 

OCT  1-1957 


in 
m 

i  PREFACE. 


In  the  following  pages  I  have  sought  to  trace,  from  the  original 
sources  as  far  as  possible,  the  character  and  career  of  an  institu- 
tion which  exercised  no  small  influence  on  the  fate  of  Spain  and 
even,  one  may  say,  indirectly  on  the  civilized  world.  The 
material  for  this  is  preserved  so  superabundantly  in  the  immense 
Spanish  archives  that  no  one  writer  can  pretend  to  exhaust  the 
subject.  There  can  be  no  finality  in  a  history  resting  on  so  vast 
a  mass  of  inedited  documents  and  I  do  not  flatter  myself  that  I 
have  accomplished  such  a  result,  but  I  am  not  without  hope  that 
what  I  have  drawn  from  them  and  from  the  labors  of  previous 
scholars  has  enabled  me  to  present  a  fairly  accurate  survey  of 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  organizations  recorded  in  human 
annals. 

In  this  a  somewhat  minute  analysis  has  seemed  to  be  indispen- 
sable of  its  structure  and  methods  of  procedure,  of  its  relations 
with  the  other  bodies  of  the  State  and  of  its  dealings  with  the 
various  classes  subject  to  its  extensive  jurisdiction.  This  has 
involved  the  accumulation  of  much  detail  in  order  to  present  the 
daily  operation  of  a  tribunal  of  which  the  real  importance  is  to 
be  sought,  not  so  much  in  the  awful  solemnities  of  the  auto  de  fe, 
or  in  the  cases  of  a  few  celebrated  victims,  as  in  the  silent  influence 
exercised  by  its  incessant  and  secret  labors  among  the  mass  of 
the  people  and  in  the  limitations  which  it  placed  on  the  Spanish 
intellect — in  the  resolute  conservatism  with  which  it  held  the 
nation  in  the  medieval  groove  and  unfitted  it  for  the  exercise  of 
rational  liberty  when  the  nineteenth  century  brought  in  the 
inevitable  Revolution. 

(V) 


VI 


PREFACE 


The  intimate  relations  between  Spain  and  Portugal,  espe- 
cially during  the  union  of  the  kingdoms  from  1580  to  1640,  has 
rendered  necessary  the  inclusion,  in  the  chapter  devoted  to  the 
Jews,  of  a  brief  sketch  of  the  Portuguese  Inquisition,  which 
earned  a  reputation  even  more  sinister  than  its  Spanish  proto- 
type. 

I  cannot  conclude  without  expressing  my  thanks  to  the  gentle- 
men whose  aid  has  enabled  me  to  collect  the  documents  on  which 
the  work  is  largely  based — Don  Claudio  Perez  Gredilla  of  the 
Archives  of  Simancas,  Don  Ramon  Santa  Maria  of  those  of 
Alcala  de  Henares  prior  to  their  removal  to  Madrid,  Don  Fran- 
cisco de  Bofarull  y  Sans  of  those  of  the  Crown  of  Aragon,  Don  J. 
Figueroa  Hernandez,  formerly  American  Vice-consul  at  Madrid, 
and  to  many  others  to  whom  I  am  indebted  in  a  minor  degree. 
I  have  also  to  tender  my  acknowledgements  to  the  authorities  of 
the  Bodleian  Library  and  of  the  Royal  Libraries  of  Copenhagen, 
Munich,  Berlin  and  the  University  of  Halle,  for  favors  warmly 
appreciated. 

Henry  Charles  Lea. 

Philadelphia,  Octobek,  1905. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  I. 


BOOK  I— ORIGIN  AND  ESTABLISHMENT. 
Chapter  I — The  Castilian  Monarchy. 

PAOX 

Disorder  at  the  Accession  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella     ...  1 

Condition  of  the  Church 8 

Limitation  of  Clerical  Privilege  and  Papal  Claims     ....  11 

Disputed  Succession 18 

Character  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 20 

Enforcement  of  Royal  Jurisdiction 24 

The  Santa  Hermandad 28 

Absorption  of  the  Military  Orders 34 

Chapter  II — The  Jews  and  the  Moors. 

Oppression  of  Jews  taught  as  a  duty 35 

Growth  of  the  Spirit  of  Persecution 37 

Persecution  under  the  Spanish  Catholic  Wisigoths      ....  40 

Toleration  under  the  Saracen  Conquest — the  Mozarabes     .      .  44 

The  Muladies 49 

The  Jews  under  the  Saracens 50 

Absence  of  Race  or  Religious  Hatred 52 

The  Mudejares — Moors  under  Christian  Domination       ...  57 

The  Church  stimulates  Intolerance 68 

Influence  of  the  Council  of  Vienne  in  1312 71 

Commencement  of  repressive  Legislation 77 

Chapter  III— The  Jews  and  the  Conversos. 

Medieval  Persecution  of  Jews 81 

Their  Wealth  and  Influence  in  Spain 84 

Clerical  Hostility  aroused ^ 

Popular  Antagonism  excited ^^ 

Causes  of  Dislike— Usury,  Official  Functions,  Ostentation    .      .  96 

Massacres  in  Navarre ^^^ 

(vii) 


viii  CONTENTS 

PAGK 

Influence  of  the  Accession  of  Henry  of  Trastamara    ....  101 

The  Massacres  of  1391 — Ferran  Martinez 103 

Creation  of  the  Class  of  Conversos  or  New  Christians     .      .      .  Ill 

Deplorable  Condition  of  the  Jews 115 

The  Ordenamiento  de  Dona  Catalina 116 

Utterances  of  the  Popes  and  the  Council  of  Basle     ....  118 

Success  of  the  Conversos — The  Jews  rehabilitate  themselves  .      .  120 

Renewed  Repression  under  Ferdinand  and  Isabella    ....  123 

The  Conversos  become  the  object  of  popular  hatred ....  125 

Expulsion  of  the  Jews  considered 131 

Expulsion  resolved  on  in  1492 — its  Conditions 135 

Sufferings  of  the  Exiles 139 

Number  of  Exiles 142 

Contemporary  Opinion 143 

Chapter  IV — Establishment  of  the  Inquisition. 

Doubtful  Christianity  of  the  Conversos 145 

Inquisition  attempted  in   1451 147 

Alonso  de  Espina  and  his  Fortalicium  Fidei 148 

Episcopal  Inquisition  attempted  in  1465 153 

Sixtus  IV  grants  Inquisitorial  Powers  to  his  Legate    ....  154 

Attempt  to  convert  and  instruct 155 

v/ Ferdinand  and  Isabella  apply  to  Sixtus  IV  for  Inquisition  in  1478  157 

They  Require  the  Power  of  Appointment  and  the  Confiscations  .  158 

The  first  Inquisitors  appointed,  September  17,  1480     .      .      .  160 

Tribunal  opened  in  Seville— first  Auto  de  Fe,  February  6,  1481  161 

Plot  to  resist  betrayed 162 

Edict  of  Grace 165 

Other  tribunals  established 166 

Failure  of  plot  in  Toledo— number  of  Penitents 168 

Tribunal  at  Guadalupe 171 

Necessity  of  Organization— The  Supreme  Council— The  Inquis- 
itor-general      172 

Character  of  Torquemada— His  quarrels  with  Inquisitors     .      .  174 

Four  Assistant  Inquisitors-general 178 

Separation  of  Aragon  from  Castile 180 

Autonomy  of  Inquisition — It  frames  its  own  Rules 181 

It  commands  the  Forces  of  the  State.— Flight  of  Suspects  .      .  182 

Emigration  of  New  Christians  forbidden 184 

Absence  of  Resistance  to  the  Inquisition 185 

f/ Ferdinand  seeks  to  prevent  Abuses 187 

The  Career  of  Lucero  at  Cordova 189 

Complicity  of  Juan  Roiz  de  Calcena 193 


CONTENTS  ix 


PAGE 


Persecution  of  Archbishop  Hernando  de  Talavera    .      .      .  197 

Cordova  appeals  to  Philip  and  Jiiana 201 

Revolt  in  Cordova 202 

Inquisitor-general  Deza  forced  to  resign 205 

Lucero  placed  on  trial 206 

Inquisitorial  Abuses  at  Jaen,  Arjona  and  Llerena      .      .      .      .211 

Ximenes  attempts  Reform 215 

Appeals  to  Charles  V — His  futile  Project  of  Reform     .      .      .216 

Conquest  of  Navarre — Introduction  of  Inquisition      ....  223 

Chapter  V — The  Kingdoms  of  Akagon. 

Independent  Institutions  of  Aragon 229 

^^erdinand  seeks  to  remodel  the  Old  Inquisition 230 

Sixtus  IV  interferes          233 

Torquemada's  Authority  is  extended  over  Aragon    ....  236 

Assented  to  by  the  Cortes  of  Tarazona  in  1484 238 

Valencia 

Popular  Resistance          239 

Resistance  overcome 242 

Aragon 

Tribunal  organized  in  Saragossa 244 

Opposition 245 

Resistance  in  Teruel 247 

Murder  of  Inquisitor  Arbues 249 

Papal  Brief  commanding  Extradition 253 

Punishment  of  the  Assassins 256 

Ravages  of  the  Inquisition 259 

Catalonia 

Its  Jealousy  of  its  Liberties 260 

Resistance  prolonged  until  1487 261 

Scanty  Results 263 

Oppression  and  Complaints 264 

The  Balearic  Isles 

Inertia  of  the  Old  Inquisition 266 

Introduction  of  the  New  in  1488— Its  Activity    ....  267 

Tumult  in  1518 268 

Complaints  of  Cortes  of  Monzon,  in  1510 269 

Concordia  of  1512 270 

Leo  X  releases  Ferdinand  from  his  Oath 272 

Inquisitor-general  Mercader's  Instructions 273 

Leo  X  confirms  the  Concordia  of  1512 274 

Charles  V  swears  to  observe  the  Concordia 275 

Dispute  over  fresh  Demands  of  Aragon 276 


X  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Decided  in  favor  of  Aragon 282 

Catalonia  secures  Concessions 283 

Futility  of  all  Agreements — Fruitless  Complaints  of  Grievances.    284 


■^ 


BOOK  II— RELATIONS  WITH  THE  STATE. 

Chapter  I — Relations  with  the  Crown. 

Combination  of  Spiritual  and  Temporal  Jurisdiction     .      .      .  289 

Ferdinand's  Control  of  the  Inquisition 289 

Except  in  Spiritual  Affairs 294 

V  Gradual  Development  of  Independence 298 

Philip  IV  reasserts  Control  over  Appointments 300 

It  returns  to  the  Inquisitor-general  under  Carlos  II     .      .      .301 

The  Crown  retains  Power  of  apj^ointing  the  Inquisitor-general  .  302 

It  cannot  dismiss  him  but  can  enforce  his  Resignation — Cases  .  304 

Struggle  of  Philip  V  with  Giudice — Case  of  Melchor  de  Macanaz  314 

Cases  under  Carlos  III  and  Carlos  IV 320 

Relations  of  the  Crown  with  the  Suprema 322 

The  Suprema  interposes  between  the  Crown  and  the  Tribunals  325 

It  acquires  control  over  the  Finances 328 

Its  Policy  of  Concealment 331 

Philip  IV  calls  on  it  for  Assistance 333 

Philip  V  reasserts  Control 336 

Pecuniary  Penances 337 

Assertion  of  Independence 340 

Temporal  Jurisdiction  over  Officials 343 

Growth  of  Bureaucracy  limits  Roj'al  Autocracy       ....  346 

Reassertion  of  Royal  Power  under  the  House  of  Bovirbon    .      .  348 

Chapter  II — Supereminence. 

Universal  Subordination  to  the  Inquisition 351 

Its  weapons  of  Excommunication  and  Inhibition      ....  355 

Power  of  Arrest  and  Imprisonment 357 

Assumption  of  Superiority 357 

Struggle  of  the  Bishops 358 

Questions  of  Precedence 362 

Superiority  to  local  Law 365 

Capricious  Tyranny 366 

Inviolability  of  Officials  and  Servants 367 

Enforcement  of  Respect 371 


CONTENTS  xi 


Chapter  III — Privileges  and  Exemptions. 


PAGE 


Exemption  from  taxation 375 

Exemption  from  Custom-house  Dues 384 

Attempts  of  Valencia  Tribunal  to  import  Wheat  from  Aragon  .  385 

Privilege  of  Valencia  Tribunal  in  the  Public  Granary     .      .      .  388 

Speculative  Exploitation  of  Privileges  by  Saragossa  Tribunal  .  389 

Coercive  Methods  of  obtaining  Supplies 392 

Valencia  asserts  Privilege  of  obtaining  Salt 394 

Exemption  from  Billets  of  Troops 395 

The  Right  to  bear  Arms 401 

Exemption  from  Military  Service 412 

The  Right  to  hold  Secular  Office 415 

The  Right  to  refuse  Office 420 

The  Right  of  Asylum 421 

Chapter  IV — Conflicting  Jurisdictions. 

Benefit  of  Clergy         427 

v/perdinand  grants  to  the  Inquisition  exclusive  Jurisdiction  over 

its  Officials 429 

He  confines  it  to  Salaried  Officials  in  criminal  Actions  and  as 

Defendants  in  civil  Suits 430 

Abusive  Extension  of  Jurisdiction  by  Inquisitors     ....  431 

Limitations  in  the  Concordia  of  1512 .  432 

Servants  of  Officials  included  in  the  fuero 432 

Struggle  in  Castile  over  the  Question  of  Familiars    ....  434'" 

Settled  by  the  Concordia  of  1553 436 

The  Concordia  extended  to  Navarre 438 

Struggle  in  Valencia — Concordia  of  1554 439 

Concordia  disregarded — Cortes  of  1564 441 

Valencia  Concordia  of  1568 442 

Disregard  of  its  Provisions 445 

Complaints  of  criminal  Familiars  unpunished     ....  446 

Aragon — its  Court  of  the  Justicia 450 

Grievances  arising  from  the  Temporal  Jurisdiction       .      .  452 

The  Concordia  of  1568 454 

Complaints  of  its  Infraction — Cortes  of  1626     ....  454 

Case  of  the  City  of  Huesca 456 

Cortes  of  1646 — Aragon  assimilated  to  Castile    ....  458 

Diminished  Power  of  the  Inquisition  in  Aragon    .      .      .      .461 

Catalonia — Non-observance  of  Concordias  of  1512  and  1520    .  465 

Disorders  of  the  Barcelona  Tribunal— Fruitless  Complaints  467 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Catalonia — Hatred  of  the  Tribunal — Catalonia  rejects  the  Con- 
cordia of  1568 469 

Cortes  of  1599— Duplicity  of  Philip  III 471 

Increasing  Discord — Fruitless  Efforts  of  Cortes  of  1626  and 

1632 — Concordia  of  Zapata 472 

RebelHon  of  1640— Expulsion  of  Inquisitors — A  National 

Inquisition  established 476 

Inquisition  restored  in  1652 — Renewal  of  Discord    .      .      .  479 

War  of  Succession — Catalan  Liberties  aboUshed  ....  483 

Majorca — Conflicts  with  the  Civil  Authorities 484 

Contests  in  Castile — Subservience  of  the  Royal  Power     .     .     .  485 

Exemption  of  Familiars  from  summons  as  Witnesses     .     .     .  491 

Conflicts  with  the  Spiritual  Courts 493 

Cases  in  Majorca^Intervention  of  the  Holy  See     .      .      .  498 

Conflicts  with  the  Military  Courts 504 

Conflicts  with  the   Military    Orders— Project  of  the  Order  of 

Santa  Maria  de  la  Espada  Blanca 505 

Profits  of  the  Temporal  Jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition    .      .      .  508 

Abuses  and  evils  of  the  System 509 

Fruitless  Efforts  to  reform  it  in  1677  and  1696 511 

Repression  under  the  House  of  Bourbon 514 

Competencias  for  Settlement  of  Disputes 517 

The  Temporal  Jurisdiction  under  the  Restoration      ....  520 

Refusal  of  Competencias  by  the  Inquisition 521 

Projects  of  Relief 524 

Chapter  V — Popular  Hostility. 

Causes  of  Popular  Hatred 527 

Visitations  of  the  Barcelona  Tribunal 528 

Troubles  in  Logrofio         530 

Preferences  claimed  in  Markets 533 

Trading  by  Officials          534 

Character  of  Officials 536 

Grievances  of  Feudal  Nobles 537 

General  Detestation  a  recognized  Fact 538 

Appendix.     List  of  Tribunals 541 

List  of  Inquisitors-general 556 

Spanish  Coinage 560 

Documents 567 


THE  INQUISITION  OF  SPAIN 


THE  INQUISITION  OF  SPAIN. 


BOOK  I. 

ORIGIN  AND  ESTABLISHMENT. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY. 

It  were  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  disorder  pervading  the 
CastiUan  kingdoms,  when  the  Spanish  monarchy  found  its  origin 
in  the  union  of  Isabella  of  Castile  and  Ferdinand  of  Aragon. 
Many  causes  had  contributed  to  prolong  and  intensify  the  evils 
of  the  feudal  system  and  to  neutralize  such  advantages  as  it 
possessed.  The  struggles  of  the  reconquest  from  the  Saracen, 
continued  at  intervals  through  seven  hundred  years  and  varied 
by  constant  civil  broils,  had  bred  a  race  of  fierce  and  turbulent 
nobles  as  eager  to  attack  a  neighbor  or  their  sovereign  as  the 
Moor,  The  contemptuous  manner  in  which  the  Cid  is  repre- 
sented, in  the  earliest  ballads,  as  treating  his  king,  shows  what 
was,  in  the  twelfth  century,  the  feeling  of  the  chivalry  of  Castile 
toward  its  overlord,  and  a  chronicler  of  the  period  seems  rather 
to  glory  in  the  fact  that  it  was  always  in  rebellion  against  the 
royal  power/  So  fragile  was  the  feudal  bond  that  a  ricohome  or 
noble  could  at  any  moment  renounce  allegiance  by  a  simple  mes- 
sage sent  to  the  king  through  a  hidalgo.^    The  necessity  of  attract- 


1  Romancero  del  Cid,  pp.  12,  74,  77,  79,  87,  88,  etc.  (Frankofurto,  1828).— 
Cronica  de  Alfonso  VII,  138-141  (Florez,  Espana  Sagrada,  XXI,  403)— 
"  Castellse  vires  per  s£ecula  fuere  rebelles: 
Inclyta  Castella  ciens  saevissima  bella 
Vix  cuiquam  regum  voluit  submittere  eoUum: 
Indomite  vixit,  coeli  lux  quandiu  luxit." 
'  Fuero  Viejo  de  Castiella,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  iii,  §  3.     Cf.  Partidas,  P.  iv,  Tit.  xxv, 

ley  7. 

1  (1) 


2  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

ing  population  and  organizing  conquered  frontiers,  which  sub- 
sequently became  inland,  led  to  granting  improvidently  liberal 
franchises  to  settlers,  which  weakened  the  powers  of  the  crown, ^ 
without  building  up,  as  in  France,  a  powerful  Third  Estate  to 
serve  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  nobles  and  eventually  to  under- 
mine feudalism.  In  Spain  the  business  of  the  Castilian  was  war. 
The  arts  of  peace  were  left  with  disdain  to  the  Jews  and  the  con- 
quered Moslems,  known  as  Mudejares,  who  were  allowed  to 
remain  on  Christian  soil  and  to  form  a  distinct  element  in  the 
population.  No  flourishing  centres  of  industrious  and  independ-. 
ent  burghers  arose  out  of  whom  the  kings  could  mould  a  body 
that  should  lend  them  efficient  support  in  their  struggles  with 
their  powerful  vassals.  The  attempt,  indeed,  was  made;  the 
Cortes,  whose  co-operation  was  required  in  the  enactment  of 
laws,  consisted  of  representatives  from  seventeen  cities,^  who 
while  serving  enjoyed  personal  inviolability,  but  so  little  did  the 
cities  prize  this  privilege  that,  under  Henry  IV,  they  complained 
of  the  expense  of  sending  deputies.  The  crown,  eager  to  find 
some  new  sources  of  influence,  agreed  to  pay  them  and  thus 
obtained  an  excuse  for  controlling  their  election,  and  although 
this  came  too  late  for  Henry  to  benefit  by  it,  it  paved  the  way 
for  the  assumption  of  absolute  domination  by  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  after  which  the  revolt  of  the  Comunidades  proved  fruit- 
less. Meanwhile  their  influence  diminished,  their  meetings  were 
scantily  attended  and  they  became  little  more  than  an  instru- 
ment which,  in  the  interminable  strife  that  cursed  the  land,  was 
used  alternately  by  any  faction  as  opportunity  offered.^ 

The  crown  itself  had  contributed  greatly  to  its  own  abasement. 
When,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  a  ruler  such  as  San  Fernando 
III.  made  the  laws  respected  and  vigorously  extended  the  bound- 


*  See,  for  instance,  the  charter  granted  by  Raymond  Berenger  IV  of  Barcelona, 
in  1108,  to  Olerdula,  after  a  devastating  Saracen  inroad,  and  the  charter  of 
Lerida  in  1148,  after  its  capture  from  the  Moors. — Alarca  Hispanica,  pp.  1233, 
1305.     The  same  causes  were  operative  in  Castile. 

*  The  cities  entitled  to  send  procurators  to  the  Cortes  were  Burgos,  Leon, 
Avila,  Segovia,  Zamora,  Toro,  Salamanca,  Soria,  Murcia,  Cuenca,  Toledo,  Seville, 
Cordova,  Jaen,  Valladolid,  Madrid  and  Guadalajara. — Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  ii, 
cap.  xcv. 

'  Marina,  Teoria  de  las  Cortes,  P.  i,  cap.  xvi,  xx.  (Madrid,  1820.). — Siete  Par- 
tidas,  P,  II,  Tit.  xvi,  ley  4.- — Modesto  de  Lafuente,  Hist.  Gen.  de  Espana,  IX, 
34. — J  Bemays,  Zur  inneren  Entwicklung  Castiliens  (Deutsche  Zeitschrift  fiir 
Geschichtswissenschaft,  1889,  pp.  381  sqq.). 


Chap.  I]  ABASEMENT  OF  THE  CROWN  3 

aries  of  Christianity,  Castile  gave  promise  of  development  in 
power  and  culture  which  miserably  failed  in  the  performance. 
In  1282  the  rebellion  of  Sancho  el  Bravo  against  his  father 
Alfonso  was  the  commencement  of  decadence.  To  purchase 
the  allegiance  of  the  nobles  he  granted  them  all  that  they  asked, 
and  to  avert  the  discontent  consequent  on  taxation  he  sup- 
plied his  treasury  by  alienating  the  crown  lands.^  Notwith- 
standing the  abilities  of  the  regent,  Maria  de  Molina,  the  suc- 
cessive minorities  of  her  son  and  grandson,  Fernando  IV  and 
Alfonso  XI,  stimulated  the  downward  progress,  although  the 
vigor  of  the  latter  in  his  maturity  restored  in  some  degree  the 
lustre  of  the  crown  and  his  stern  justice  re-established  order, 
so  that,  as  we  are  told,  property  could  be  left  unguarded  in  the 
streets  at  night.^  His  son,  Don  Pedro,  earned  the  epithet  of 
the  Cruel  by  his  ruthless  endeavor  to  reduce  to  obedience  his 
turbulent  nobles,  whose  disaffection  invited  the  usurpation 
of  his  bastard  brother,  Henry  of  Trastamara,  The  throne  which 
the  latter  won  by  fratricide  and  the  aid  of  the  foreigner,  he 
could  only  hold  by  fresh  concessions  to  his  magnates  which 
fatally  reduced  the  royal  power.^  This  heritage  he  left  to  his 
son,  Juan  I,  who  forcibly  described,  in  the  Cortes  of  Valladolid 
in  1385,  how  he  wore  mourning  in  his  heart  because  of  his  power- 
lessness  to  administer  justice  and  to  govern  as  he  ought,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  evil  customs  which  he  was  unable  to  correct. 
This  depicts  the  condition  of  the  monarchy  during  the  century 
intervening  between  the  murder  of  Pedro  and  the  accession  of 
Isabella — a  dreary  period  of  endless  revolt  and  civil  strife,  dur- 
ing which  the  central  authority  was  steadily  growing  less  able 
to  curb  the  lawless  elements  tending  to  eventual  anarchy.  The 
king  was  little  more  than  a  puppet  of  which  rival  factions  sought 
to  gain  possession  in  order  to  cover  their  ambitions  with  a  cloak 
of  legality,  and  those  which  failed  to  secure  his  person  treated 
his  authority  with  contempt,  or  set  up  some  rival  in  a  son  or 
brother  as  an  excuse  for  rebellion.  The  work  of  the  Recon- 
quest  which,  for  six  hundred  years,  had  been  the  leading  object 


*  Cronica  de  Don  Alfonso  X,  cap.  clxxvi. — Barrantes,  Ilustraciones  de  la  Casa 
de  Niebla,  Lib.  i,  cap.  xiv  (Memorial  historico  espanol,  VIII). 

^  Cronica  de  Don  Alfonso  XI,  cap.  Ixxx. — Barrantes,  op.  cit.  Lib.  i,  cap.  xxvi, 
Ixxx. 

^  Ayala,  Cronica  de  Pedro  I,  ano  xvii,  cap.  vii. 

*  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  II,  330  (Madrid,  1863). 


4  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

of  national  pride  was  virtually  abandoned,  save  in  some  spas- 
modic enterprise,  such  as  the  capture  of  Antequera,  and  the 
little  kingdom  of  Granada,  apparently  on  the  point  of  extinction 
under  Alfonso  XI,  seemed  destined  to  perpetuate  for  ever  on 
Spanish  soil  the  hateful  presence  of  the  crescent. 

The  long  reign  of  the  feeble  Juan  II,  from  1406  to  1454,  was 
followed  by  that  of  the  feebler  Henry  IV,  popularly  known  as 
El  Impotente.  In  the  Seguro  de  Tordesillas,  in  1439,  the  dis- 
affected nobles  virtually  dictated  terms  to  Juan  11/  In  the 
Deposition  of  Avila,  in  1465,  they  treated  Henry  IV  with  the 
bitterest  contempt.  His  effigy,  clad  in  mourning  and  adorned 
with  the  royal  insignia,  was  placed  upon  a  throne  and  four 
articles  of  accusation  were  read.  For  the  first  he  was  pronounced 
unworthy  of  the  kingly  station,  when  Alonso  Carrillo,  Arch- 
bishop of  Toledo,  removed  the  crown;  for  the  second  he  was 
deprived  of  the  administration  of  justice,  when  Alvaro  de  Zuiiiga, 
Count  of  Plasencia,  took  away  the  sword;  for  the  third  he  was 
deprived  of  the  government,  when  Rodrigo  Pimentel,  Count  of 
Benavente,  struck  the  sceptre  away;  for  the  fourth  he  was  sen- 
tenced to  lose  the  throne,  when  Diego  Lopez  de  Zuniga  tumbled 
the  image  from  its  seat  with  an  indecent  gibe.  It  was  scarce 
more  than  a  continuation  of  the  mockery  when  they  elected  as 
his  successor  his  brother  Alfonso,  a  child  eleven  years  of  age.^ 

The  lawless  independence  of  the  nobles  and  the  effacement 
of  the  royal  authority  may  be  estimated  from  a  single  example. 
At  Plasencia  two  powerful  lords,  Garci  Alvarez  de  Toledo, 
Sefior  of  Oropesa,  and  Hernan  Rodriguez  de  Monroy,  kept  the 
country  in  an  uproar  with  their  armed  dissension.  Juan  II 
sent  Ayala,  Senor  of  Cebolla,  with  a  royal  commission  to  sup- 
press the  disorder.  Monroy,  in  place  of  submitting,  insulted 
Ayala,  who  as  a  "buen  caballero"  disdained  to  complain  to  the 
king  and  preferred  to  avenge  himself.  Juan  on  hearing  of  this 
summoned  to  his  presence  Monroy,  who  collected  all  his  friends 
and  retainers  and  set  out  with  a  formidable  army.  Ayala  made 
a  similar  levy  and  set  upon  him  as  he  passed  near  Cebolla.  There 
was  a  desperate  battle  in  which  Ayala  was  worsted  and  forced 
to  take  refuge  in  Cebolla,  while  Monroy  passed  on  to  Toledo 


*  Seguro  de  Tordesillas,  Madrid,  1784. 

*  Castillo,  Cronica  de  Enrique  IV,  cap.  Ixxiv. — Valera,  Memorial  de  diversas 
Hazanas,  cap.  xxviii. — Pulgar,  Cronica,  p.  3  (Ed.  1780). 


Chap.  I]  VIOLENCE  AND  TREACHERY  5 

and,  when  he  kissed  the  king's  hands,  Juan  told  him  that  he  had 
sent  for  him  to  cut  off  his  head,  but  as  Ayala  had  preferred  to 
right  himself  he  gave  Monroy  a  God-speed  on  his  journey  home 
and  washed  his  hands  of  the  whole  affair.^ 

The  ricosomes  who  thus  were  released  from  all  the  restraint 
of  law  had  as  little  respect  for  those  of  honor  and  morality. 
The  virtues  which  we  are  wont  to  ascribe  to  chivalry  were 
represented  by  such  follies  as  the  celebrated  Passo  Honroso  of 
Suero  de  Quinones,  when  that  knight  and  his  nine  comrades, 
in  1434,  kept,  in  honor  of  their  ladies,  for  thirty  days  against  all 
comers,  the  pass  of  the  Bridge  of  Orbigo,  at  the  season  of  the 
feast  of  Santiago  and  sixty-nine  challengers  presented  them- 
selves in  the  lists.^  With  exceptions  such  as  this,  and  a  rare 
manifestation  of  magnanimity,  as  when  the  Duke  of  Medina 
Sidonia  raised  an  army  and  hastened  to  the  relief  of  his  enemy, 
Rodrigo  Ponce  de  Leon  besieged  in  Alhama,^  the  record  of  the 
time  is  one  of  the  foulest  treachery,  from  which  truth  and  honor 
are  absent  and  human  nature  displays  itself  in  its  basest  aspect. 
According  to  contemporary  belief,  Ferdinand  was  indebted 
for  the  crown  of  Aragon  to  the  poisoning  of  his  brother,  the 
deeply  mourned  Carlos,  Prince  of  Viana,  while  the  crown  of  Castile 
fell  to  Isabella  through  the  similar  taking  off  of  her  brother 
Alfonso/ 

A  characteristic  incident  is  one  involving  Dofia  Maria  de  Mon- 
roy, who  married  into  the  great  house  of  Henriquez  of  Seville, 
and  was  left  a  widow  with  two  boys.  When  the  youths  were  re- 
spectively eighteen  and  nineteen  years  old  they  were  close  friends 
of  two  gentlemen  of  Seville  named  Mangano.  The  younger 
brother,  dicing  with  them  in  their  house,  was  involved  in  a 
quarrel  with  them,  when  they  set  upon  him  with  their  servants 
and  slew  him.  Then,  fearing  the  vengeance  of  the  elder  brother, 
they  sent  him  a  friendly  message  to  come  and  play  with  them; 
when  he  came  they  led  him  along  a  dark  corridor  in  which  they 
suddenly  turned  upon  him  and  stabbed  him  to  death.     When 


^  Maldonado,  Hechos  de  Don  Alonso  de  Monrroy  (Memorial  hist6rico  espanol, 
T.  VI,  p.  14). 

2  Juan  de  Pineda,  El  Libro  del  Passo  Honroso,  Madrid,  1784. — Pulgar,  ClaroS 
Varones,  Tit.  xiv. 

'  Barrantes,  Ilustraciones  de  la  Casa  de  Niebla,  Lib.  viii,  cap.  xxiv. 

*  Valera,  Memorial  de  diversas  Hazanas,  cap.  xix.,  xl. — Amador  de  los  Rios, 
Historia  de  los  Judios,  III,  205. 


Q  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

the  disfigured  corpses  of  her  boys  were  brought  to  Dona  Maria 
she  shed  no  tears,  but  the  fierceness  of  her  eyes  frightened  all 
who  looked  upon  her.  The  Manganos  promptly  took  horse  and 
fled  to  Portugal,  whither  Dona  Maria  followed  them  in  male 
attire  with  a  band  of  twenty  cavaliers.  Her  spies  were  speedily 
on  the  track  of  the  fugitives;  within  a  month  of  the  murders 
she  came  at  night  to  the  house  where  they  lay  concealed;  the 
doors  were  broken  in  and  she  entered  with  ten  of  her  men  while 
the  rest  kept  guard  outside.  The  Manganos  put  themselves  in 
defence  and  shouted  for  help,  but  before  the  neighbors  could 
assemble  she  had  both  their  heads  in  her  left  hand  and  was 
galloping  off  with  her  troop,  never  stopping  till  she  reached 
Salamanca,  where  she  went  to  the  church  and  laid  the  bloody 
heads  on  the  tomb  of  her  boys.  Thenceforth  she  was  known 
as  Dona  Maria  la  Brava,  and  her  exploit  led  to  long  and  mur- 
derous feuds  between  the  Monroyes  and  the  Manganos.^ 

Dona  Maria  was  but  a  type  of  the  unsexed  women,  mugeres 
varoniles,  common  at  the  time,  who  would  take  the  field  or 
maintain  their  place  in  factious  intrigue  with  as  much  ferocity 
and  pertinacity  as  men.  Ferdinand  could  well  look  without 
surprise  on  the  activity  in  court  and  camp  of  his  queen  Isabella, 
when  he  remembered  the  prowess  of  his  mother,  Juana  Henri- 
quez,  who  had  secured  for  him  the  crown  of  Aragon.  Doiia 
Leonora  Pimentel,  Duchess  of  Arevalo,  was  one  of  these;  of  the 
Countess  of  Medellin  it  was  said  that  no  Roman  captain  could 
get  the  better  of  her  in  feats  of  arms,  and  the  Countess  of  Haro 
was  equally  noted.  The  Countess  of  Medellin,  indeed,  kept 
her  own  son  in  prison  for  years  while  she  enjoyed  the  revenues 
of  his  town  of  Medellin  and,  when  Queen  Isabella  refused  to 
confirm  her  possession  of  the  place,  she  transferred  her  allegiance 
to  the  King  of  Portugal  to  whom  she  delivered  the  castle  of 
Merida.  At  the  same  time  the  Moorish  influence,  which  was  so 
strong  in  Castile,  occasionally  led  to  the  opposite  extreme.  The 
Duke  of  Najera  kept  his  daughters  in  such  absolute  seclusion 
that  no  man,  not  even  his  sons,  was  permitted  to  enter  the  apart- 
ments reserved  for  the  women,  and  the  reason  he  alleged — that 
the  heart  does  not  covet  what  the  eye  does  not  see — was  little 
flattering  to  either  sex.^ 

*  Maldonado,  Hechos  de  Don  Alonso  de  Monrroy,  pp.  17-19. 
'  Maldonado,  op.  cit.  pp.  65,  71,  72,  83. — Barrantes,  Ilustraciones  de  la  Casa 
de  Niebla,  Lib.  viii,  cap.  iii. — Hazanas  valerosas  de  Pedro  Manrique  de  Lara 


Chap.  I]  VIRTUAL  ANARCHY  7 

The  condition  of  the  common  people  can  readily  be  imagined 
in  this  perpetual  strife  between  warlike,  ambitious  and  unprin- 
cipled nobles,  now  uniting  in  factions  which  involved  the  whole 
realm  in  war,  and  now  contenting  themselves  with  assaults 
upon  their  neighbors.  The  land  was  desolated;  the  husband- 
man scarce  could  take  heart  to  plant  his  seed,  for  the  harvest 
was  apt  to  be  garnered  with  the  sword  and  thrust  into  castles 
to  provision  them  against  siege.  As  a  writer  of  the  period 
tells  us,  there  was  neither  law  nor  justice  save  that  of  arms.^ 
In  a  letter  describing  the  universal  anarchy,  written  by  Her- 
nando del  Pulgar  from  Madrid,  in  1473,  he  says  that  for  more 
than  five  years  there  has  been  no  communication  from  Murcia, 
where  the  family  of  Fajardo  reigned  supreme — it  is,  he  says,  as 
foreign  a  land  as  Navarre.^  That  the  roads  were  unsafe  for 
trade  or  travel  was  a  matter  of  course;  every  petty  hidalgo  con- 
verted his  stronghold  into  a  den  of  robbers,  and  what  these  left 
was  swept  away  by  bands  of  Free  Companions.^  Disorder 
reigned  supreme  and  all-pervading.  The  crown  was  powerless 
and  the  royal  treasury  exhausted.  Improvident  grants  of  lands 
and  revenues  and  jurisdictions,  to  bribe  the  treacherous  fidelity 
of  faithless  nobles,  or  to  gratify  worthless  favorites,  were  made, 
till  there  was  nothing  left  to  give,  and  then  Henry  IV  bestowed 
licenses  for  private  mints,  until  there  were  a  hundred  and  fifty 
of  them  at  work,  flooding  the  land  with  base  money,  to  the 
unutterable  confusion  of  the  coinage  and  the  impoverishment 
of  the  people.*  The  Cortes  of  Madrid,  in  1467,  and  of  Ocafia 
in  1469,  called  on  Henry  to  resume  his  improvident  grants,  and 
those  of  Madrigal,  in  1476,  repeated  the  urgency  to  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  who  had  been  forced  to  follow  his  example.  To 
this  the  sovereigns  replied  thanking  the  Cortes  and  postponing 
the  matter.  They  did  not  feel  themselves  strong  enough  until 
1480,  when  at  the  Cortes  of  Toledo,  they  resumed  thirty 
million  maravedis  of  revenue  which  had  been  alienated  during 


(Memorial  historico  espanol,  T.  VI,  pp.  123,  126). — Hernando  del  Pulgar, 
Cronica,  P.  i,  cap.  Ixxxiii. 

'  Maldonado,  op.  cil.,  pp.  23,  52,  71,  73. 

^  Clemencin,  Elogio  de  Dona  Isabel,  p.  127. 

^  Castillo,  Cronica  de  Enrique  IV,  cap.  cliii. 

*  Pulgar,  Claros  Varones  de  Espana  (Elzevir,  1670,  p.  6). — Castillo,  op.  cit. 
cap.  cxliii.— Saez,  Monedas  de  Enrique  IV,  pp.  3,  7,  23  (Madrid,  1805).  At  the 
Cortes  of  Segovia,  in  1471,  Henry  ordered  the  destruction  of  all  the  private  mints. 


8  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

the  troubles,  and  this  after  an  investigation  which  left  untouched 
the  gifts  to  loyal  subjects  and  only  withdrew  such  as  had  been 
extorted/  Respect  for  the  crown  had  fallen  as  low  as  its  revenues. 
A  story  told  of  the  Count  of  Benavente  shows  how  difficult  it 
was,  even  after  the  accession  of  Isabella,  for  the  nobles  to  recog- 
nize that  they  owed  any  obedience  to  the  sovereign.  He  was 
walking  with  the  queen  when  a  woman  came  weeping  and  beg- 
ging justice,  saying  that  he  had  had  her  husband  slain  in  spite 
of  a  royal  safe-conduct.  She  showed  the  letter  which  her  hus- 
band had  carried  in  his  breast,  pierced  by  the  blow  which  had 
ended  his  life,  when  the  count  jeeringly  remarked  ''A  cuirass 
would  have  been  of  more  service."  Piqued  by  this  Isabella  said 
"Count  do  you  then  not  wish  there  was  no  king  in  Castile?" 
"Rather,"  said  he,  "I  wish  there  were  many."  "And  why?" 
"Because  then  I  should  be  one  of  them."^ 

In  such  a  chaos  of  lawless  passion  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
the  Church  was  better  than  the  nobles  who  filled  its  high  places 
with  worthless  scions  of  their  stocks,  or  than  the  lower  classes 
of  the  laity  who  sought  in  it  provision  for  a  life  of  idleness  and 
licence.  The  primate  of  Castile  was  the  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  who 
was  likewise  ex  officio  chancellor  of  the  realm  and  whose  revenues 
were  variously  estimated  at  from  eighty  to  a  hundred  thousand 
ducats,  with  patronage  at  his  disposal  amounting  to  a  hundred 
thousand  more.^  The  occupant  of  this  exalted  position,  at  the 
accession  of  Isabella,  was  Alonso  Carrillo,  a  turbulent  prelate. 


but  it  is  not  likely  that  he  was  obeyed  (Cortes  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  III,  830, 
Madrid,  1866).  Garcia  Lopez  de  Salazar,  a  contemporary,  tells  us  that  the  gold 
Enriques  were  originally  23|  carats  fine,  but  those  struck  in  the  royal  mints  grad- 
ually fell  to  seven  carats,  while  the  private  mints  made  them  what  they  pleased. 
— Saez,  p.  418. 

Spanish  coinage  is  an  intricate  subject,  and  as  some  knowledge  of  it  is  necessary 
for  the  proper  understanding  of  sums  of  money  referred  to  hereafter,  I  have 
given  a  brief  account  of  it  in  the  Appendix. 

'  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  IV,  59-68. — Novisima 
Recopilacion,  Lib.  iii.  Tit.  v,  ley  10,  11. — Barrantes,  Hustraciones  de  la  Casa 
de  Niebla,  Lib.  viii,  cap.  xxii. — Garibay,  Compendio  Historial,  Lib.  xviii, 
cap.  xvi. — Don  Clemencin  (op.  cit.  p.  146). 

At  the  death  of  Henry  IV,  in  1474,  the  royal  revenue  had  fallen  to  about  ten 
million  maravedis.  By  1477  it  increased  to  27,415,626,  by  1482  to  150,695,288, 
and  in  1504,  at  the  death  of  Isabella,  it  was  341,733,597. — Clemencin,  p.  153. 

2  Misceldnea  de  Zapata  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  T.  XI,  p.  332). 

'  L.  Marinseus  Siculus  de  Reb.  Hispan.  (R.  Beli  Rer.  Hispan.  Scriptt,  p.  774). 
— Damiani  a  Goes  Hispania  (Ibid.  p.  1237). 


Chap.  I]  CHABACTEB  OF  PRELATES  9 

delighting  in  war,  foremost  in  all  the  civil  broils  of  the  period, 
who,  not  content  with  the  immense  income  of  his  see,  lavished 
extravagant  sums  in  alchemy.  Hernando  del  Pulgar,  in  a  letter 
of  remonstrance,  said  to  him,  "The  people  look  to  you  as  their 
bishop  and  find  in  you  their  enemy;  they  groan  and  complain 
that  you  use  your  authority  not  for  their  benefit  and  reforma- 
tion but  for  their  destruction;  not  as  an  exemplar  of  kindness 
and  peace  but  for  corruption,  scandal,  and  disturbance."  When, 
in  1495,  the  puritan  Ximenes  was  appointed  to  the  archbishopric, 
one  of  his  first  acts  is  said  to  have  been  the  removal,  from  near 
the  altar  of  the  Franciscan  church  of  Toledo,  of  a  magnificent 
tomb  which  Carrillo  had  erected  to  his  bastard,  Troilo  Carrillo/ 
His  successor  in  the  see  of  Toledo  has  a  special  interest  for  us 
in  view  of  his  labors  to  purify  the  faith  which  culminated  in 
establishing  the  Inquisition.  Pero  Gonzalez  de  Mendoza  was 
one  of  the  notable  men  of  the  day,  whose  influence  with  Fer- 
cUnand  and  Isabella  won  for  him  the  name  of  "the  third  king." 
While  yet  a  child  he  held  the  curacy  of  Hita ;  at  twelve  he  had  the 
archdeaconry  of  Guadalajara,  one  of  the  richest  benefices  in  Spain, 
which  he  retained  during  the  successive  bishoprics  of  Calahorra 
and  Sigiienza  and  the  archbishopric  of  Seville;  the  see  of  Sigiienza 
he  kept  during  the  whole  tenure  successively  of  the  archiepisco- 
pates  of  Seville  and  Toledo,  in  addition  to  which  he  was  a  car- 
dinal and  titular  Patriarch  of  Alexandria.  With  his  kindred  of 
the  powerful  house  of  Mendoza  he  adhered  to  Henry  IV,  until 
they  effected  the  sale  of  the  hapless  Beltraneja,  who  was  in  their 
hands,  to  her  father,  Henry,  for  certain  estates  and  the  title  of 
Duke  del  Infantado  for  Diego  Hurtado,  the  head  of  the  family, 
after  which  Pero  Gonzalez  and  his  kinsmen  promptly  transferred 
their  allegiance  to  Isabella.  His  admiring  biographer  assures  us 
that  he  was  more  ready  with  his  hands  than  with  his  tongue, 
that  he  was  a  gallant  knight  and  that  there  was  never  a  war  in 
Spain  during  his  time  in  which  he  did  not  personally  take  part 
or  at  least  have  his  troops  engaged.    Though  he  had  no  leisure 


*  Pulgar,  Claros  Varones,  Tit.  xx;  Letras  No.  iii.— Flechier,  Histoire  du  Car- 
dinal Ximenes,  II,  291  (Ed.  1693). 

The  Cortes  of  Toledo,  in  1462,  among  their  grievances,  include  the  factious 
turbulence  of  the  clergy — "bien  sabe  vuestra  alteza  commo  algunos  obispos  e 
abades  e  otras  eclesiasticas  personas  se  han  fecho  y  de  cada  dia  se  fazen  de  vandos, 
e  algunos  dellos  tanto  e  mas  escandalizan  vuestras  cibdades  e  villas  que  los  legos 
dellas."— Cortes  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  III,  711  (Madrid,  1866). 


10  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

to  attend  to  his  spiritual  duties,  he  found  time  to  yield  to  the 
temptations  of  the  flesh.  When,  in  1484,  he  led  the  army  of 
invasion  into  Granada  he  took  with  him  his  bastard,  Rodrigo 
de  Mendoza,  a  youth  of  twenty,  who  was  already  Senor  del 
Castillo  del  Cid,  and  who,  in  1492,  was  created  Marquis  of  Cenete 
on  the  occasion  of  his  marriage,  amid  great  rejoicings,  in  the 
presence  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  to  Leonor  de  la  Cerda, 
daughter  and  heiress  of  the  Duke  of  Medina  Cell  and  niece  of 
Ferdinand  himself.  This  was  not  the  only  evidence  of  his  frailty 
of  which  he  took  no  shame,  for  he  had  another  son  named  Juan, 
by  a  lady  of  Valladolid,  who  was  married  to  Dona  Ana  de  Aragon, 
another  niece  of  Ferdinand.^ 

With  such  men  at  the  head  of  the  Church  it  is  not  to  be 
expected  that  the  lower  orders  of  the  clergy  should  be  models  of 
decency  and  morality,  rendering  Christianity  attractive  to  Jew 
and  Moslem.  Alonso  Carrillo,  the  archbishop  of  Toledo,  can 
scarce  be  regarded  as  a  strict  disciplinarian,  but  even  he  felt 
obliged,  when  holding  the  council  of  Aranda  in  1473,  to  endeavor 
to  repress  the  more  flagrant  scandals  of  the  clergy.  As  a  cor- 
rective of  their  prevailing  ignorance  it  was  ordered  that  in  future 
none  should  be  ordained  who  could  not  speak  Latin — the  lan- 
guage of  the  ritual  and  the  foundation  of  all  instruction,  theo- 
logical and  otherwise.  They  were  forbidden  to  wear  silk  or 
gaily  colored  garments.  As  their  licentiousness  rendered  them 
contemptible  to  the  people,  they  were  commanded  to  part  with 
their  concubines  within  two  months.  As  their  fondness  for 
dicing  led  to  perjuries,  scandals  and  homicides,  they  were 
required  thereafter  to  abstain  from  it,  privately  as  well  as  pub- 
licly. As  many  priests  disdained  to  celebrate  mass,  they  were 
ordered  to  do  so  at  least  four  times  a  year;  bishops,  moreover, 
were  urged  to  celebrate  at  least  thrice  a  year,  under  pain  of 
severe  penalties  to  be  determined  at  the  next  council.  The 
absurdities  poured  forth  in  their  sermons  by  wandering  priests 
and  friars  were  to  be  repressed  by  requiring  examinations  prior 
to  issuing  licenses  to  preach,  and  the  scandals  of  the  pardon- 
sellers  were  to  be  diminished  by  subjecting  them  to  the  bishops. 
The  bishops  were  also  urged  to  make  severe  examples  of  offenders 
in  the  lower  orders  of  the  clergy,  when  delivered  to  them  by  the 


'  Francisco  de  Medina,  Vida  del  Cardenal  Mendoza  (Mem.  hist,  espanol, 
T.  VI,  pp.  156,  190,  193-4,  255,  293-4,  297,  304). 


Chap.  I]  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH  11 

secular  courts,  and  not  to  allow  their  enormities  to  enjoy  con- 
tinued immunity.  The  bishops,  moreover,  were  commanded 
to  make  no  charge  for  conferring  ordinations;  they  were  ex- 
horted, and  all  other  clerics  were  required,  not  to  lead  a  dissolute 
military  life  or  to  enter  the  service  of  secular  lords  excepting  of 
the  king  and  princes  of  the  blood.  As  duels  were  forbidden, 
both  laity  and  clergy  were  warned  that  if  slain  in  such  encoun- 
ters they  would  be  refused  Christian  burial.^  That  this  effort 
at  reform  was,  as  might  be  expected,  wholly  abortive  is  evi- 
denced from  the  description  of  the  vices  of  the  ecclesiastical 
body  when  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  subsequently  endeavored  to 
correct  its  more  flagrant  scandals.^  It  was  wholly  secularized 
and  only  to  be  distinguished  from  the  laity  by  the  sacred  func- 
tions which  rendered  its  vices  more  abhorrent,  by  the  immunities 
which  fostered  and  stimulated  those  vices  and  by  the  intolerance 
which,  blind  to  all  aberrations  of  morals,  proclaimed  the  stake 
to  be  the  only  fitting  punishment  for  aberration  in  the  faith. 
While  powerless  to  reform  itself  it  yet  had  influence  enough  to 
educate  the  people  up  to  its  standard  of  orthodoxy  in  the  ruth- 
less persecution  of  all  whom  it  pleased  to  designate  as  enemies 
of  Christ. 

Yet  in  Spain  the  immunities  and  privileges  of  the  Church  were 
less  than  elsewhere  throughout  Christendom.  The  independ- 
ence which  the  secular  power  in  Castile  had  always  manifested 
toward  the  Holy  See  and  its  disregard  of  the  canon  law  are 
points  which  will  occasionally  manifest  themselves  hereafter 
and  are  worthy  of  a  moment's  consideration  here.  I  have  else- 
where shown  that,  alone  among  the  Latin  nations,  Castile  steadily 
refused  to  admit  the  medieval  Inquisition  and  disregarded  com- 
pletely the  prescriptions  of  the  Church  regarding  heresy.^  In 
the  twelfth  century  the  popular  feeling  toward  the  papacy  is 
voiced  in  the  ballads  of  the  Cid.  When  a  demand  for  tribute  to 
the  Emperor  Henry  IV  is  said  to  be  made  through  the  pope, 
Ruy  Diaz  advises  King  Fernando  to  send  a  defiance  from  both 
of  them  to  the  pope  and  all  his  party,  which  the  monarch  accord- 
ingly does.    So  when  the  Cid  accompanies  his  master  to  a  great 


1  Concil.  Arandens.  ann.  1473,  cap.  3,  6,  9,  10,  11,  12,  13,  14,  15,  20,  25  (Aguirre, 
V,  344-50). 

2  L.  Marinsei  Siculi  de  Rebus  Hispan.  Lib.  xix. — Raynald.  Annal.  ann.  1483, 
n.  15;  ann.  1485,  n.  26. 

'  History  of  the  Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages,  Vol.  II,  pp.  180  sqq. 


12  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

council  in  Rome  and  kicks  over  the  chair  prepared  for  the  King 
of  France,  the  pope  excommunicates  him,  whereupon  he  kneels 
before  the  holy  father  and  asks  for  absolution,  telling  him  it 
will  be  the  worse  for  him  if  he  does  not  grant  it,  which  the  pope 
promptly  does  on  condition  of  his  being  more  self-restrained 
during  the  remainder  of  his  stay/  There  is  no  trace  of  the  venera- 
tion for  the  vice-gerent  of  God  which  elsewhere  was  inculcated 
as  an  indispensable  religious  duty. 

When  such  was  the  popular  temper  it  is  easy  to  understand 
that  the  prohibition  to  carry  money  out  of  the  kingdom  to  the 
pope  was  even  more  emphatic  than  in  England.^  The  claim 
to  control  the  patronage  of  the  Church,  which  was  so  prolific  a 
source  of  revenue  to  the  curia,  met  throughout  Spain  a  resist- 
ance as  sturdy  as  in  England,  though  the  troubled  condition  of 
the  land  interfered  with  its  success.  In  Catalonia,  the  Cortes,  in 
1419,  adopted  a  law  in  which,  after  alluding  to  the  scandals  and 
irreparable  injuries  arising  from  the  intrusion  of  strangers,  it 
was  declared  that  none  but  natives  should  hold  preferment  of 
any  kind  and  that  all  papal  letters  and  bulls  contravening  this 
should  be  resisted  in  whatever  way  was  necessary.^  In  Castile 
the  Cortes  of  1390  forcibly  represented  to  Juan  I  the  evils 
resulting  from  this  foisting  of  strangers  on  the  Spanish  Church, 
but  his  speedy  death  prevented  action.  The  remonstrance  was 
renewed  to  the  tutors  of  the  young  Henry  III,  who  promptly 
placed  an  embargo  on  the  revenues  of  foreign  benefice-holders 
and  forbade  the  admission  of  subsequent  appointees.  This  led 
to  a  compromise,  in  1393,  by  which  the  Avignonese  curia  secured 
the  recognition  of  existing  incumbents  by  promising  that  no 
more  such  nominations  should  be  made.*  The  promise  made 
by  the  Avignonese  antipope  was  not  binding  on  the  Roman 
curia  and  the  quarrel  continued.  Even  if  the  recipient  was  a 
native  there  was  little  ceremony  in  dealing  with  papal  grants  of 
benefices  when  occasion  prompted,  as  was  shown  in  the  affair 


^  Komancero  del  Cid,  pp.  245,  269  (Francofurto,  1828). 

^  Ordenanzas  Reales,  Lib.  vi,  Tit.  ix,  ley  21. — VLllanueva,  Viage  Literario, 
XVII,  256. 

^  Constitutions  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i.  Tit.  v,  cap.  1  (Barcelona,  1588,  p.  18). 
Similar  laws  adopted  in  1534  and  1537  show  that  meanwhile  it  had  been  impos- 
sible to  prevent  papal  encroachments. — lb.  cap.  3,  4. 

*  Ayala,  Cronica  de  Don  Juan  I,  ano  x,  cap.  vii. — Cronica  de  Don  Enrique  III, 
ano  III,  cap.  xvi. 


Chap.  1]  DISREGARD  OF  THE  PAPACY  13 

which  first  revealed  the  unbending  character  of  the  future  Car- 
dinal Ximenes,  During  his  youthful  sojourn  in  Rome  Ximenes 
procured  papal  "expectative  letters"  granting  him  the  first 
preferment  that  should  fall  vacant  in  the  diocese  of  Toledo.  On 
his  return  he  made  use  of  these  letters  to  take  possession  of  the 
arciprestazfjo  of  Uceda,  but  it  happened  that  Archbishop  Carrillo 
simultaneously  gave  it  to  one  of  his  creatures  and,  as  Ximenes 
refused  to  surrender  his  rights,  he  was  thrown  into  a  tower  in 
Uceda — a  tower  he  subsequently,  when  himself  Archbishop  of 
Toledo,  used  as  a  treasury.  As  he  continued  obstinate,  Carrillo 
transferred  him  to  the  Pozo  de  Santorcas,  a  harsh  dungeon 
used  for  clerical  malefactors,  where  he  lay  for  six  years,  resolutely 
refusing  to  abandon  his  claim,  until  released  at  the  intercession 
of  the  wife  of  a  nephew  of  Carrillo.^  Evidently  the  Castilian 
prelates  had  slender  respect  for  papal  diplomas.  About  the 
same  time,  during  the  civil  war  between  Henry  IV  and  his 
brother  Alfonso,  when  Hernando  de  Luxan,  Bishop  of  Sigiienza, 
died,  the  dean,  Diego  Lopez,  obtained  possession  of  the  castles 
and  the  treasure  of  the  see,  joined  the  party  of  Alfonso,  and, 
with  the  aid  of  Archbishop  Carrillo,  caused  himself  to  be  elected 
bishop.  Meanwhile  Paul  II  gave  the  see  to  Juan  de  Maella, 
Cardinal-bishop  of  Zamora,  but  Diego  Lopez  refused  to  obey  the 
bulls  and  appealed  to  the  future  council  against  the  pope  and 
all  his  censures.  He  disregarded  an  interdict  launched  against 
him  and  was  supported  by  all  his  clergy.  Maella  died  and  Paul 
II  gave  the  bishopric  to  the  Bishop  of  Calahorra,  requesting 
Henry  IV  to  place  him  in  possession.  So  secure  did  Diego  Lopez 
feel  that  he  rejected  a  compromise  offering  him  the  see  of  Zamora 
in  exchange,  but  the  possession  of  Sigiienza  happened  to  be  of 
importance  in  the  war;  by  bribery  a  troop  of  royahst  soldiers 
obtained  admittance  to  the  castle  and  carried  off  Lopez  as  a 
prisoner.^ 

It  was  the  same  even  with  so  pious  a  monarch  as  Ferdinand 
the  Catholic.  When,  in  1476,  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Saragossa 
became  vacant  by  the  death  of  Juan  of  Aragon,  Ferdinand,  with 
his  father,  Juan  II,  asked  Sixtus  IV  to  appoint  his  natural  son, 
Alfonso,  a  child  six  years  of  age.  The  claim  of  the  papacy  to 
archiepiscopal    appointments,    based    on    the   necessity    of    the 

^  Alvar  Gomez,  De  Rebus  gestis  a  Francisco  Ximenio,  fol.  3  (Compluti,  1569). 
— Robles,  Vida  del  Cardenal  Ximenes,  pp.  38-41. 
^  Castillo,  Cronica  de  Enrique  IV,  cap.  cv. 


14  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

pallium,  was  of  ancient  date  and  had  become  incontestable.  In 
the  thirteenth  century  Alfonso  X  had  admitted  it  in  the  case  of 
the  archbishops,  but  when  Isabella  appointed  Ximenes  to  the 
see  of  Toledo  in  1495  the  proceedings  showed  that  the  post  was 
considered  to  be  in  the  gift  of  the  crown  and  the  papal  confirma- 
tion to  be  a  matter  of  course.^  So  in  the  present  case  the  request 
was  a  mere  form,  as  was  seen  when  Sixtus  refused.  The  defect 
of  birth  could  be  dispensed  for,  but  the  youth  of  Alfonso  was  an 
insuperable  objection,  and  Sixtus  appointed  Ansias  Dezpuch, 
then  Archbishop  of  Monreal,  thinking  that  the  services  ren- 
dered by  him  and  by  his  uncle,  the  Master  of  the  Order  of  Mon- 
tesa,  would  induce  the  king  to  assent.  Dezpuch  accepted,  but 
Ferdinand  at  once  sequestrated  all  the  revenues  of  Monreal  and 
the  priory  of  Santa  Cristina  and  ordered  him  to  resign.  On  his 
hesitating,  Ferdinand  threatened  to  seize  all  the  castles  and 
revenues  of  the  mastership  of  Montesa,  which  was  effectual, 
and  Sixtus  compromised  by  making  the  boy  perpetual  admin- 
istrator of  Saragossa.^ 

Isabella,  despite  her  piety,  was  as  firm  as  her  husband  in 
defending  the  claim  of  the  crown  in  these  matters  against  the 
papacy.  When,  in  1482,  the  see  of  Cuenca  became  vacant  and 
Sixtus  IV  appointed  a  Genoese  cousin  to  the  position,  Ferdinand 
and  his  queen  energetically  represented  that  only  Spaniards 
should  have  Spanish  bishoprics  and  that  the  selection  should  be 
made  by  them.  Sixtus  retorted  that  all  benefices  were  in  the  gift 
of  the  pope  and  that  his  power,  derived  from  God,  was  unlimited, 
whereupon  they  ordered  home  all  their  subjects  resident  in  the 
papal  court  and  threatened  to  take  steps  for  the  convocation 
of  a  general  council.  These  energetic  proceedings  brought  Sixtus 
to  terms  and  he  sent  to  Spain  a  special  nuncio,  but  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella  stood  on  their  dignity  and  refused  even  to  receive 
him.  Then  the  Cardinal  of  Spain,  Pero  Gonzalez  de  Mendoza, 
intervened  and,  on  Sixtus  withdrawing  his  pretensions,  they 
allowed  themselves  to  be  reconciled.^    They  alleged  that  what- 

1  Memorial  historico  espanol,  T.  I,  p.  236;  II,  22,  25.— Gomez  de  Rebus  gestis 
a  Fran.  Ximenio,  fol.  9-11. 

2  Zurita,  Anales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  xx,  cap.  xxii. — Mariana,  Historia  de  Espana, 
Lib.  XXIV,  cap.  xvi. 

'  Pulgar,  Cronica  de  los  Reyes  Catolicos,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  civ. 
The  right  as  to  bishoprics  was  finally  conceded  in  1523  to  Charles  V  by  Adrian 
VI  (Mariana,  Lib.  xxvi,  cap.  5). 


Chap.  I]        ECCLESIASTICAL  JURISDICTION  LIMITED  15 

ever  might  be  the  papal  rights  in  other  countries,  in  Spain  the 
patronage  of  all  benefices  belonged  to  the  crown  because  they 
and  their  predecessors  had  wrested  the  land  from  the  infidel/ 
So  jealous,  indeed,  were  they  of  the  papal  encroachments  that 
among  the  subjects  which  they  submitted  to  the  national  synod 
assembled  by  them  in  Seville,  June,  1478,  was  how  to  prevent 
the  residence  of  papal  legates  and  nuncios,  who  not  only  carried 
off  much  money  from  the  kingdom,  but  threatened  the  royal 
pre-eminence,  to  which  the  synod  rephed  that  this  rested  with 
the  sovereigns  to  do  as  their  predecessors  had  done.^  It  is  easy 
thus  to  understand  why,  in  the  organization  of  the  Inquisition, 
they  insisted  that  all  appointments  should  be  made  by  the  throne. 
In  other  ways  the  much-prized  superiority  of  the  canon  over 
secular  law  was  disregarded  in  Spain.  The  Cortes  and  the  mon- 
arch had  never  hesitated  to  legislate  on  ecclesiastical  affairs, 
and  the  jurisdiction  of  the  ecclesiastical  courts  was  limited  with 
a  jealousy  which  paid  scant  respect  to  canon  and  decretal. 
Nothing,  for  instance,  was  better  settled  than  the  spiritual 
cognizance  of  all  matters  respecting  testaments,  yet  when,  in 
1270,  the  authorities  of  Badajoz  complained  of  the  interference 
of  the  bishop's  court  with  secular  judges  in  such  affairs,  pro- 
ceeding to  the  excommunication  of  those  who  exercised  juris- 
diction over  them,  Alfonso  X  expressed  surprise  and  gave 
explicit  commands  that  such  cases  should  be  decided  by  the  lay 
courts  exclusively.^  So  httle  respect  was  felt  for  the  immunity 
of  ecclesiastics  from  secular  law,  in  defence  of  which  Thomas 
d  Becket  had  laid  down  his  life,  that,  as  late  as  1351,  an  ordena- 
miento  of  Pedro  the  Cruel  concedes  to  them  that  they  shall  not 
be  cited  before  secular  judges  except  in  accordance  with  law.'' 
On  the  other  hand,  laymen  were  jealously  protected  from  the 
ecclesiastical  courts.  The  crown  was  declared  to  be  the  sole 
judge  of  its  own  jurisdiction,  and  no  appeal  from  it  was  allowed. 
In  the  exercise  of  this  supreme  power  laws  were  repeatedly 
enacted  providing  that  a  layman,  who  should  cite  another  lay- 
man before  a  spiritual  judge,  not  only  lost  his  cause  but  incurred 
a  heavy  fine  and  disability  for  public  office.    The  spiritual  judge 

*  Francisco  de  Medina,  Vida  del  Cardenal  de  Mendoza  (Memorial  historico 
espafiol,  T.  VI,  p.  244). 

»  Boletin  de  la  R.  Acad,  de  la  Historia,  T.  XXII,  pp.  220,  227. 
3  Coleccion  de  Privilegios  etc.  T.  VI,  p.  117  (Madrid,  1833). 

*  Archivo  de  Sevilla,  Seccion  primera,  Carpeta  iv,  fol.  85,  §  3  (Sevilla,  1860). 


IQ  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

could  not  imprison  a  layman  or  levy  execution  on  his  property, 
and  he  who  attempted  it  or  any  other  invasion  of  the  royal 
jurisdiction  forfeited  his  benefices  and  became  a  stranger  in- the 
kingdom,  thus  rendering  him  incapable  of  preferment.  The 
ecclesiastic  who  cited  a  layman  before  a  spiritual  judge  lost  any 
privileges  or  graces  which  he  might  hold  of  the  crown.  The  lay- 
man who  attempted  to  remove  a  cause  from  a  lay  court  to  a 
spiritual  one  was  punished  with  confiscation  of  all  his  property, 
while  any  vassal  who  claimed  benefit  of  clergy  and  declined  the 
jurisdiction  of  a  royal  court  forfeited  his  fief.  In  re-enacting 
these  laws  in  the  Cortes  of  Toledo,  in  1480,  Ferdinand  and  Isa- 
bella complained  of  their  inobservance  and  ordered  their  strict 
enforcement.^  No  other  nation  in  Christendom  dared  thus  to 
infringe  on  the  sacred  limits  of  spiritual  jurisdiction. 

Yet  even  this  was  not  all,  for  the  secular  power  asserted  its 
right  to  intervene  in  matters  within  the  Church  itself.  Else- 
where  the  ineradicable  vice  of  priestly  concubinage  was  left  to 
be  dealt  with  by  bishops  and  archdeacons.  The  guilty  priests 
themselves,  even  in  Castile,  were  exempt  from  civil  authority, 
but  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  had  no  hesitation  in  invading  their 
domiciles  and,  by  repeated  edicts  in  1480,  1491,  1502,  and  1503, 
endeavored  to  cure  the  evil  by  fining,  scourging,  and  banishing 
their  partners  in  sin.'  It  is  true,  as  we  have  seen  above,  that 
these  laws  were  eluded,  but  there  was  at  least  a  vigorous  attempt 
to  enforce  them  for,  in  1490,  the  clergy  of  Guipuzcoa  complained 
that  the  officers  of  justice  visited  their  houses  to  see  whether 
they  kept  concubines  (which  of  course  they  denied)  and  carried 
off  their  women  to  prison,  where  they  were  forced  to  confess 
themselves  concubines,  to  the  great  dishonor  of  the  Church, 
whereupon  the  sovereigns  repressed  the  excessive  zeal  of  their 
officials  and  ordered  them  in  future  to  interfere  only  when  the 
concubinage  was  notorious.'  A  yet  more  significant  extension 
of  royal  authority  was  exercised  when,  in  1490,  the  people  of 
Lequeitio  (Biscay)  complained  that,  though  there  were  twelve 
mass-priests  in  the  parish  church,  they  all  celebrated  together  and 
at  uncertain  times,  so  that  the  pious  were  unable  to  be  present. 
This  was  a  matter  belonging  exclusively  to  the  diocesan  authority, 

^  Ordenanzas  Reales,  Lib,  iii,  Tit.  i,  leyes  3,  4,  5,  6,  8,  9,  10. — Novfs.  Recop. 
Lib,  IV,  Tit.  i,  leyes  3,  4,  5. 

^  Novlsima  Recop.  Lib.  xii,  Tit.  xxvi,  leyes  3-5. 
5  Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  III,  113  (Madrid,  1829) 


Chap.  I]  ECCLESIASTICAL  IMMUNITY 

yet  the  appeal  was  made  to  the  crown,  and  the  Royal  Council  felt 
no  scruple  in  ordering  the  priests  to  celebrate  in  succession  and 
at  reasonable  hours,  under  pain  of  banishment  and  forfeiture  of 
temporalities,  thus  disregarding  even  the  imprescriptible  immu- 
nities of  the  priesthood/  So  slender,  indeed,  was  the  respect 
paid  to  these  immunities  that  the  Council  of  Aranda,  in  1473, 
complained  that  magistrates  of  cities  and  other  temporal  lords 
presumed  to  banish  ecclesiastics  holding  benefices  in  cathedral 
churches,  and  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the  interdict 
^with  which  the  council  threatened  to  punish  this  infraction  of 
the  canons  was  effective  in  its  suppression.^ 

One  of  the  most  deplorable  abuses  with  which  the  Church 
afflicted  society  was  the  admission  into  the  minor  orders  of 
crowds  of  laymen  who,  without  abandoning  worldly  pursuits, 
adopted  the  tonsure  in  order  to  enjoy  the  irresponsibility  afforded 
by  the  claim  acquired  to  spiritual  juriscUction,  whether  as  crimin- 
als or  as  traders.  The  Cortes  of  Tordesillas,  in  1401,  declared  that 
the  greater  portion  of  the  rufianes  and  malefactors  of  the  king- 
dom wore  the  tonsure;  when  arrested  by  the  secular  officials  the 
spiritual  courts  demanded  them  and  enforced  their  claims  with 
excommunication,  after  which  they  freely  discharged  the  evil 
doers.  This  complaint  was  re-echoed  by  almost  every  subse- 
quent Cortes,  with  an  occasional  allusion  to  the  stimulus  thus 
afforded  to  the  evil  propensities  of  those  who  were  really  clerics. 
The  kings  in  responding  to  these  representations  could  only  say 
that  they  would  apply  to  the  Holy  Father  for  relief,  but  the 
relief  never  came.^  The  spirit  in  which  these  claims  of  clerical 
immunity  were  advanced  as  a  shield  for  criminals  and  the  reso- 
lute firmness  with  which  they  were  met  by  Ferdinand  and  Isa- 
bella are  illustrated  by  an  occurrence  in  1486,  in  Truxillo,  where 
a  man  committed  a  crime  and  was  arrested  by  the  corregidor. 
He  claimed  to  wear  the  tonsure  and,  as  the  officials  delayed  in 
handing  him  over  to  the  ecclesiastical  court,  some  clerics  who 
were  his  kinsmen  paraded  the  streets  with  a  cross  and  pro- 
claimed that  religion  was  being  destroyed.  They  succeeded 
thus  in  arousing  a  tumult  in  which  the  culprit  was  liberated. 
The  sovereigns  were  in  Galicia,  but  they  forthwith  despatched 


*  Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  I,  246. 

'  Concil.  Arandens.  ann.  1473,  cap.  xxiv  (Aguirre,  V,  350). 
2  Cortes  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  II,  539;  III,  33,  57,  122,  172,  192-6,  287,  328, 
408. 

2 


18  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

troops  to  the  scene  of  disturbance;  severe  punishment  was 
inflicted  on  the  participants  in  the  riot,  and  the  clerics  who  had 
provoked  it  were  deprived  of  citizenship  and  were  banished 
from  Spain.*  Less  serious  but  still  abundantly  obnoxious  were 
the  advantages  which  these  tonsured  laymen  possessed  in  civil 
suits  by  claiming  the  privilege  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction. 
To  meet  this  was  largely  the  object  of  the  laws  in  the  Ordenanzas 
Reales  described  above,  and  these  were  supplemented,  in  1519, 
by  an  edict  of  Charles  V  forbidding  episcopal  officials  from 
cognizance  of  cases  where  such  so-called  clerics  engaged  in  trade 
sought  the  spiritual  courts  as  a  defence  against  civil  suits.  A 
similar  abuse,  by  which  such  clerics  in  public  office  evaded  respon- 
sibility for  wrong-doing  by  pleading  their  clergy,  he  remedied 
by  reviving  an  old  law  of  Juan  I  declaring  them  ineligible  to 
office.^  Thus  the  royal  power  in  Spain  asserted  its  authority 
over  the  Church  after  a  fashion  unknown  elsewhere.  We  shall 
see  that,  so  long  as  it  declined  to  persecute  Moors  and  Jews, 
Rome  could  not  compel  it  to  do  so.  When  its  policy  changed 
under  Isabella  it  was  inevitable  that  the  machinery  of  persecu- 
tion should  be  under  the  control,  not  of  the  Church,  but  of  the 
sovereign.  We  shall  also  see  that,  when  the  Inquisition  inflicted 
similar  wrongs  by  the  immunities  claimed  for  its  own  officials 
and  familiars,  the  sovereigns  customarily  turned  a  deaf  ear  to 
the  complaints  of  the  people. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  Castile  when  the  death  of  the  miser- 
able Henry  IV,  December  12,  1474,  cast  the  responsibility  of 
royalty  on  his  sister  Isabella  and  her  husband,  Ferdinand  of 
Aragon.  The  power  of  the  crown  was  eclipsed;  the  land  was 
ravaged  with  interminable  war  between  nobles  who  were  prac- 
tically independent;  the  sentiment  of  loyalty  and  patriotism 
seemed  extinct;  deceit  and  treachery,  false  oaths — whatever 
would  serve  cupidity  and  ambition — were  universal;  justice 
was  bought  and  sold;  private  vengeance  was  exercised  without 
restraint ;  there  was  no  security  for  life  and  property.  The  fabric 
of  society  seemed  about  to  fall  in  ruins. ^    To  evolve  order  out 


*  Pulgar,  Cronica,  iii,  Ixvi. 

'  Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  II,  49,  50  (Madrid,  1829). 

^  La  Puente,  Epit.  de  la  Cronica  de  Juan  II,  Lib.  v,  cap.  xxxiii. — L.  Marinsei 
Siculi  de  Rebus  Hispan.  Lib.  xix. — Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  ii,  cap.  li. — Bernaldez, 
Historia  de  los  Reyes  Catolicos,  cap.  i  (Sevilla,  1869). 


Chap.   I]  DISPUTED  SUCCESSION  19 

of  this  chaos  of  passion  and  lawlessness  was  a  task  to  test  to 
the  uttermost  the  nerve  and  capacity  of  the  most  resolute  and 
sagacious.  To  add  to  the  confusion  there  was  a  disputed  suc- 
cession, although,  in  1468,  the  oath  of  fidehty  had  been  taken  to 
Isabella,  with  the  assent  of  Henry  IV,  in  the  Contract  of  Perales, 
by  which  he,  for  the  second  time,  acknowledged  his  reputed 
daughter  Juana  not  to  be  his.  He  was  popularly  beheved  to  be 
impotent,  and  when  his  wife  Juana,  sister  of  Affonso  V  of  Por- 
tugal, bore  him  a  daughter,  whom  he  acknowledged  and  de- 
clared to  be  his  heir,  her  paternity  w^as  maliciously  ascribed  to 
Beltran  de  la  Cueva,  and  she  was  known  by  the  opposite  party 
as  La  Beltraneja.  Though  Henry  had  been  forced  by  his  nobles 
to  set  aside  her  claims  in  favor  of  his  brother  Alfonso  in  the 
Declaration  of  Cabezon,  in  1464,  and,  after  Alfonso's  death,  in 
favor  of  Isabella,  in  1468,  the  latter's  marriage,  in  1469,  with 
Ferdinand  of  Aragon  so  angered  him  that  he  betrothed  Juana 
to  Charles  Duke  of  Guienne,  brother  of  Louis  XI  of  France, 
and  made  the  nobles  of  his  faction  swear  to  acknowledge  her. 
At  his  death  he  testified  again  to  her  legitimacy  and  declared 
her  to  be  his  successor  in  a  will  which  long  remained  hidden  and 
finally  in  1504  fell  under  the  control  of  Ferdinand,  who  ordered 
it  burnt.^  There  was  a  powerful  party  pledged  to  support  her 
rights,  and  they  were  aided  on  the  one  hand  by  Affonso  of  Por- 
tugal and  on  the  other  by  Louis  of  France,  each  eager  to  profit 
by  dismembering  the  unhappy  land.  Some  years  of  war,  more 
cruel  and  bloody  than  even  the  preceding  aimless  strife,  were 
required  to  dispose  of  this  formiclable  opposition — years  which 
tried  to  the  utmost  the  ability  of  the  young  sovereigns  and 
proved  to  their  subjects  that  at  length  they  had  rulers  endowed 
with  kingly  quahties.  The  decisive  victory  of  Toro,  won  by 
Ferdinand  over  the  Portuguese,  March  1,  1476,  virtually  settled 
the  result,  although  the  final  treaty  was  not  signed  until  1479. 
The  Beltraneja  was  given  the  alternative  of  marrying  within 
six  months  Prince  Juan,  son  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  then 
but  two  years  old,  or  of  entering  the  Order  of  Santa  Clara  in  a 
Portuguese  house.  She  chose  the  latter,  but  she  never  ceased 
to  sign  herself  Yo  la  Reina,  and  her  pretensions  were  a  frequent 
source  of  anxiety.    She  led  a  varied  life,  sometimes  treated  as 


^  Galindez  de  Carvajal  (Coleccion  de  Documentos  para  la  Historia  de  Espafia, 
XVIII,  254). 


20  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

queen,  with  a  court  around  her,  and  sometimes  as  a  nun  in  her 
convent,  dying  at  last  in  1531,  at  the  age  of  seventy/ 

Isabella  was  queen  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name.  Under  the 
feudal  system,  the  husband  of  an  heiress  was  so  completely  lord 
of  the  fief  that,  in  the  Capitulations  of  Cervera,  January  7,  1469, 
which  preceded  the  marriage,  the  Castilians  carefully  guarded 
the  autonomy  of  their  kingdom  and  Ferdinand  swore  to  observe 
the  conditions.^  Yet,  on  the  death  of  Henry  IV,  he  imagined 
that  he  could  disregard  the  compact,  alleging  that  the  crown  of 
Castile  passed  to  the  nearest  male  descendant,  and  that  through 
his  grandfather,  Ferdinand  of  Antequera,  brother  of  Henry  III, 
he  was  the  lawful  heir.  The  position  was,  however,  too  doubtful 
and  complicated  for  him  to  insist  on  this;  a  short  struggle  con- 
vinced his  consummate  prudence  that  it  was  wisdom  to  yield, 
and  Isabella's  wifely  tact  facilitated  submission.  It  was  agreed 
that  their  two  names  should  appear  on  all  papers,  both  their 
heads  on  all  coins,  and  that  there  should  be  a  single  seal  with 
the  arms  of  Castile  and  Aragon.  Thereafter  they  acted  in  con- 
cert which  was  rarely  disturbed.  The  strong  individuality 
which  characterized  both  conduced  to  harmony,  for  neither 
of  them  allowed  courtiers  to  gain  undue  influence.  As  Pulgar 
says  "The  favorite  of  the  king  is  the  queen,  the  favorite  of  the 
queen  is  the  king."^ 

Ferdinand,  without  being  a  truly  great  man,  was  unquestion- 
ably the  greatest  monarch  of  an  age  not  prolific  in  greatness,  the 
only  contemporary  whom  he  did  not  wholly  eclipse  being  Henry 
VII  of  England.  Constant  in  adversity,  not  unduly  elated  in 
prosperity,  there  was  a  stedfast  equipoise  in  his  character  which 
more  than  compensated  for  any  lack  of  brilliancy.  Far-seeing 
and  cautious,  he  took  no  decisive  step  that  was  not  well  pre- 
pared in  advance  but,  when  the  time  came,  he  could  strike, 
promptly  and  hard.     Not  natm-ally  cruel,  he  took  no  pleasure 


*  Zurita,  Anales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  xviii,  cap.  20,  21. — Castillo,  Cronica  de 
Enrique  IV,  cap.  cxxiv. — Valera,  Memorial  de  diversas  Hazanas,  cap.  xx. — 
Pulgar,  Cronica  P.  i,  cap.  ii;  P.  ii,  cap.  xci. — Maldonado,  Hechos  de  Don  Alonso 
de  Monrrey  (Mem.  hist,  espafiol,  T.  VI,  p.  94). — Barrantes,  Ilustraciones  de  la 
Casa  de  Niebla,  Lib.  viii,  cap.  xxi. 

'  Castillo,  Cronica  de  Enrique  IV,  cap.  cxxxvii. — Clemencin,  Elogio  de  la 
Reina  Isabel,  Append.  I. 

^  Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  ii,  cap.  ii;  Letra  xii. — L.  Marinsei  Siculi  de  Reb.  Hisp. 
Lib,  XIX. 


Chap.  I]  FERDINAND'S  CHARACTER  21 

in  human  suffering,  but  he  was  pitiless  when  his  poUcy  demanded. 
Dissimulation  and  deceit  are  too  invariable  an  ingredient  of 
statecraft  for  us  to  censure  him  severely  for  the  craftiness  in 
which  he  surpassed  his  rivals  or  for  the  mendacity  in  which  he 
was  an  adept.  Cold  and  reserved,  he  preferred  to  inspire  fear 
rather  than  to  excite  affection,  but  he  was  well  served  and  his 
insight  into  character  gave  him  the  most  useful  faculty  of  a 
ruler,  the  ability  to  choose  his  instruments  and  to  get  from  them 
the  best  work  which  they  were  capable  of  performing,  while 
gratitude  for  past  services  never  imposed  on  him  any  incon- 
venient obligations.  He  was  popularly  accused  of  avarice, 
but  the  empty  treasury  left  at  his  death  showed  that  acquisi- 
tiveness with  him  had  been  merely  a  means  to  an  end.^  His 
religious  convictions  were  sincere  and  moreover  he  recognized 
wisely  the  invaluable  aid  which  religion  could  lend  to  statesman- 
ship at  a  time  when  Latin  Christianity  was  dominant  without 
a  rival.  This  was  especially  the  case  in  the  ten  years'  war  with 
Granada,  his  conduct  of  which  would  alone  stamp  him  as  a  leader 
of  men.  The  fool-hardy  defiance  of  Abu-l-Ha^an  when,  in  1478, 
he  haughtily  refused  to  resume  payment  of  the  tribute  which 
for  centuries  had  been  imposed  on  Granada,  and  when,  in  1481, 
he  broke  the  existing  truce  by  surprising  Zahara,  was  a  for- 
tunate occurrence  which  Ferdinand  improved  to  the  utmost. 
The  unruly  Castilian  nobles  had  been  reduced  to  order,  but  they 
chafed  under  the  unaccustomed  restraint.  By  giving  their 
warlike  instincts  legitimate  employment  in  a  holy  cause,  he  was 
securing  internal  peace;  by  leading  his  armies  personally,  he 
was  winning  the  respect  of  his  Castilian  subjects  who  hated  him 
as  an  Aragonese,  and  he  was  training  them  to  habits  of  obedience. 
By  making  conquests  for  the  crown  of  Castile  he  became  natural- 
ized and  was  no  longer  a  foreigner.  It  was  more  than  a  hundred 
years  since  a  King  of  Castile  had  led  his  chivalry  to  victory  over 
the  infidel,  and  national  pride  and  religious  enthusiasm  were 
enlisted  in  winning  for  him  the  personal  authority  necessary 
for  a  sovereign,  which  had  been  forfeited  since  the  murder  of 
Pedro  the  Cruel  had  established  the  bastard  line  upon  the  throne. 
It  was  by  such  means  as  this,  and  not  by  the  Inquisition  that 


'  Machiavelli's  judgement  was  as  usual  correct  when  he  remarked  (II  Principe, 
cap.  xvi)  "  II  Re  di  Spagna  presente  se  fusse  tenuto  liberale  non  avrebbe  fatto 
ne  vinto  tante  imprese." 


22  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  1 

he  started  the  movement  which  converted  feudal  Spain  into  an 
absolute  monarchy.  His  life's  work  was  seen  in  the  success 
with  which,  against  heavy  odds,  he  lifted  Spain  from  her  obscurity 
in  Europe  to  the  foremost  rank  of  Christian  powers. 

Yet  amid  the  numerous  acts  of  cruelty  and  duplicity  which 
tarnish  the  memory  of  Ferdinand  as  a  statesman,  examination 
of  his  correspondence  with  his  officials  of  the  Inquisition,  espe- 
cially with  those  employed  in  the  odious  business  of  confiscating 
the  property  of  the  unhappy  victims,  has  revealed  to  me  an 
unexpectedly  favorable  aspect  of  his  character.  While  urging 
them  to  diligence  and  thoroughness,  his  instructions  are  invari- 
ably to  decide  all  cases  with  rectitude  and  justice  and  to  give  no 
one  cause  of  complaint.  While  insisting  on  the  subordination 
of  the  people  and  the  secular  officials  to  the  Holy  Office,  more 
than  once  we  find  him  intervening  to  check  arbitrary  action  and 
to  correct  abuses  and,  when  cases  of  peculiar  hardship  arising 
from  confiscations  are  brought  to  his  notice,  he  frequently  grants 
to  widows  and  orphans  a  portion  of  the  forfeited  property.  All 
this  will  come  before  us  more  fully  hereafter  and  a  single  instance 
will  suffice  here  to  illustrate  his  kindly  disposition  to  his  sub- 
jects. In  a  letter  of  October  20,  1502,  he  recites  that  Domingo 
Mufioz  of  Calatayna  has  appealed  to  him  for  rehef,  representing 
that  his  httle  property  was  burdened  with  an  annual  censal  or 
ground-rent  of  two  sols  eight  dineros — part  of  a  larger  one  con- 
fiscated in  the  estate  of  Juan  de  Buendia,  condemned  for  heresy 
— and  he  orders  Juan  Royz,  his  receiver  of  confiscations  at  Sara- 
gossa,  to  release  the  ground-rent  and  let  Muiloz  have  his  property 
unincumbered,  giving  as  a  reason  that  the  latter  is  old  and  poor.^ 
It  shows  Ferdinand's  reputation  among  his  subjects  that  such 
an  appeal  should  be  ventured,  and  the  very  triviality  of  the  matter 
renders  it  the  more  impressive  that  a  monarch,  whose  ceaseless 
personal  activity  was  devoted  to  the  largest  affairs  of  that 
tumultuous  world,  should  turn  from  the  compUcated  treachery 
of  European  politics  to  consider  and  grant  so  humble  a  prayer. 

In  his  successful  career  as  a  monarch  he  was  well  seconded 
by  his  queen.  Without  deserving  the  exaggerated  encomiums 
which  have  idealized  her,  Isabella  was  a  woman  exactly  adapted 
to  her  environment.  As  we  have  seen,  the  muger  varonil  was 
a  not  uncommon  development  of  the  period  in  Spain,  and  Isa- 


Archivo  Gen.  de  Simancas,  Consejo  de  la  Inquisicion,  Libro  11,  fol.  22 


Chap.  I]  ISABELLA  23 

bella's  youth,  passed  in  the  midst  of  civil  broils,  with  her  fate 
more  than  once  suspended  in  the  balance,  had  strengthened 
and  hardened  the  masculine  element  in  her  character.  Self- 
reliant  and  possessed  of  both  moral  and  physical  courage,  she 
was  prompt  and  decided,  bearing  with  ease  responsibilities  that 
would  have  crushed  a  weaker  nature  and  admirably  fitted  to 
cope  with  the  fierce  and  turbulent  nobles,  who  respected  neither 
her  station  nor  her  sex  and  could  be  reduced  to  obedience  only 
by  a  will  superior  to  their  own.  She  had  the  defects  of  her  quali- 
ties. She  could  not  have  been  the  queen  she  was  without  sacri- 
fice of  womanly  softness,  and  she  earned  the  reputation  of  being 
hard  and  unforgiving.^  She  could  not  be  merciful  when  her 
task  was  to  reduce  to  order  the  wild  turmoil  and  lawlessness 
which  had  so  long  reigned  unchecked  in  Castile,  but  in  this  she 
shed  no  blood  wantonly  and  she  knew  how  to  pardon  when 
policy  dictated  mercy.  How  she  won  the  affection  of  those  in 
whom  she  confided  can  be  readily  understood  from  the  feminine 
grace  of  her  letters  to  her  confessor,  Hernando  of  Talavera.^  A 
less  praiseworthy  attribute  of  her  sex  was  her  fondness  for  per- 
sonal adornment,  in  which  she  indulged  in  spite  of  a  chronically 
empty  treasury  and  a  people  overwhelmed  with  taxation.  We 
hear  of  her  magnifying  her  self-abnegation  in  receiving  the  French 
ambassador  twice  in  the  same  gown,  while  an  attache  of  the 
English  envoy  says  that  he  never  saw  her  twice  in  the  same 
attire,  and  that  a  single  toilet,  with  its  jewels  and  appendages 
must  have  cost  at  least  200,000  crowns.^  She  was  moreover 
rigidly  tenacious  of  the  royal  dignity.  Once  when  Ferdinand 
was  playing  cards  with  some  grandees,  the  Admiral  of  Castile, 
whose  sister  was  Ferdinand's  mother,  addressed  him  repeatedly 
as  ''nephew";  Isabella  was  undressed  in  an  inner  room  and 
heard  it;  she  hastily  gathered  a  garment  around  her,  put  her 
head  through  the  door  and  rebuked  him— "Hold!  my  lord  the 

^  "Con  gran  dificultad  perdonava  los  yerros  que  se  le  hazian."— Barrantes, 
Ilustraciones  etc.,  Lib.  viii,  cap.  xii. 

2  Palafox  y  Mendoza,  Obras,  T.  VII,  p.  333  (Madrid,  1762).— Ochoa,  Epis- 
tolario  Espanol,  II,   14. 

3  Bergenroth,  Calendar  of  Spanish  State  Papers,  I,  xx.xiv-v.  The  value  of  the 
gold  crown  of  the  period  was  4.s.  6d.  sterling  (Ibid.  p.  4)  and  200,000  scudos  was 
the  marriage-portion  of  Katharine  of  Aragon  when  wedded  to  Prince  Arthur  of 
England  (Ibid.  p.  Ixiv),  which  is  the  equivalent  of  about  £500,000  of  modern 
money.  For  the  oppression  of  the  people  see  Gonzalo  de  Ayora  (Boletin  de  la 
R.  Acad.,  XVII,  447-8).    Cf.  Clemencin,  p.  185. 


24  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

king  has  no  kindred  or  friends,  he  has  servants  and  vassals."^ 
She  was  deeply  and  sincerely  religious,  placing  almost  unbounded 
confidence  in  her  spiritual  directors,  whom  she  selected,  not 
among  courtly  casuists  to  soothe  her  conscience,  but  from  among 
the  most  rigid  and  unbending  churchmen  within  her  reach, 
and  to  this  may  in  part  be  attributed  the  fanaticism  which  led 
her  to  make  such  havoc  among  her  people.  She  was  scrupu- 
lously regular  in  all  church  observances;  in  addition  to  frequent 
prayers  she  daily  recited  the  hours  like  a  priest,  and  her  biogra- 
pher tells  us  that,  in  spite  of  the  pressing  cares  of  state,  she 
seemed  to  lead  a  contemplative  rather  than  an  active  life.^  She 
was  naturally  just  and  upright,  though,  in  the  tortuous  policy  of 
the  time,  she  had  no  hesitation  in  becoming  the  accomplice  of 
Ferdinand's  frequent  duplicity  and  treachery.  With  all  the 
crowded  activity  of  her  eventful  life,  she  found  time  to  stimulate 
the  culture  despised  by  the  warlike  chivalry  around  her,  and 
she  took  a  deep  interest  in  an  academy  which,  at  her  instance, 
was  opened  for  the  young  nobles  of  her  court  by  the  learned 
Italian,  Peter  Martyr  of  Anghiera.^ 

Isabella  recognized  that  the  surest  way  to  curb  the  disorders 
which  pervaded  her  kingdom  was  the  vigorous  enforcement  of 
the  law  and,  as  soon  as  the  favorable  aspect  of  the  war  of  the 
succession  gave  leisure  for  less  pressing  matters,  she  set  earnestly 
to  work  to  accomplish  it.  The  victory  of  Toro  was  followed 
immediately  by  the  Cortes  of  Madrigal,  April  27,  1476,  where 
far-reaching  reforms  were  enacted,  among  which  the  administra- 
tion of  justice  and  the  vindication  of  the  royal  prerogatives  occu- 
pied a  conspicuous  place. ^  It  was  not  long  before  she  gave  her 
people  a  practical  illustration  of  her  inflexible  determination  to 
enforce  these  reforms.  In  1477  she  visited  Seville  with  her 
court  and  presided  in  public  herself  over  the  trial  of  malefactors. 
Complaints  came  in  thick  and  fast  of  murders  and  robberies 
committed  in  the  bad  old  times;  the  criminals  were  summarily 
dispatched,  and  a  great  fear  fell  upon  the  whole  population,  for 
there  was  scarce  a  family  or  even  an  individual  who  was  not 
compromised.     Multitudes  fled  and  Seville  bade  fair  to  be  de- 


^  From  the  Notables  of  Cristobal  Nunez,  printed  by  Padre  Fidel  Fita  in  the 
Boletin,  XVI,  561. 

^  L.  Marinsei  Siculi  de  Rebus  Hisp.  Lib.  xxi. 

^  Pet.  Martyr.  Angler.  Lib.  v,  Epist.  cxiv. 

*  Colmeiro,  Cortes  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  II,  43  sqq. 


Chap.  1]  ROYAL  JURISDICTION  25 

populated  when,  at  the  suppUcation  of  a  great  crowd,  headed 
by  Enrique  de  Guzman,  Duke  of  Medina  Sidonia,  she  pro- 
claimed an  amnesty  conditioned  on  the  restitution  of  property, 
making,  however,  the  significant  exception  of  heresy.^ 

From  Seville  she  went,  accompanied  by  Ferdinand,  to  Cordova. 
There  they  executed  malefactors,  compelled  restitution  of 
property,  took  possession  of  the  castles  of  robber  hidalgos,  and 
left  the  land  pacified.  As  opportunity  allowed,  in  the  busy  years 
which  followed,  Isabella  visited  other  portions  of  her  dominions, 
from  Valencia  to  Biscay  and  Galicia,  on  the  same  errand  and, 
when  she  could  not  appear  in  person,  she  sent  judges  around 
with  full  power  to  represent  the  crown,  the  influence  of  which 
was  further  extended  when,  in  1480,  the  royal  officers  known  as 
corregidores  were  appointed  in  all  towns  and  cities.^  One  nota- 
ble case  is  recorded  which  impressed  the  whole  nobility  with 
salutary  terror.  In  1480  the  widow  of  a  scrivener  appealed  to 
her  against  Alvar  Yaiiez,  a  rich  caballero  of  Lugo  in  Galicia, 
who,  to  obtain  possession  of  a  coveted  property,  caused  the 
scrivener  to  forge  a  deed  and  then  murdered  him  to  insure 
secrecy.  It  was  probably  this  which  led  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
to  send  to  Galicia  Fernando  de  Acufia  as  governor  with  an 
armed  force,  and  Garci  Lopez  de  Chinchilla  as  corregidor. 
Yanez  was  arrested  and  finally  confessed  and  offered  to  pur- 
chase pardon  with  40,000  ducats  to  be  applied  to  the  Moorish 
wars.  Isabella's  counsellors  advised  acceptance  of  the  tempting 
sum  for  so  holy  a  cause,  but  her  inflexible  sense  of  justice  rejected 
it;  she  had  the  offender  put  to  death,  but  to  prove  her  disinter- 
estedness she  waived  her  claim  to  his  forfeited  estates  and  gave 
them  to  his  children.  Alvar  Yaiiez  was  but  a  type  of  the  law- 
less nobles  of  Galicia  who,  for  a  century,  had  been  accustomed 
to  slay  and  spoil  without  accountability  to  any  one.  So  desperate 
appeared  the  condition  of  the  land  thatwhen,  in  1480,  the  deputies 
of  the  towns  assembled  to  receive  Acuiia  and  Chinchilla  they  told 
them  that  they  would  have  to  have  powers  from  the  King  of 
Heaven  as  well  as  from  the  earthly  king  to  punish  the  evil  doers 


^  Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  ii,  cap.  Ixx. — ^1.  Anton.  Nebriss.  Decad.  i,  Lib.  vii, 
cap.  6.— Barrantes,  Ilustraciones  etc.  Lib.  viii,  cap.  xv. — Jose  Gestoso  y  Perez, 
Los  Reyes  Catolicos  en  Sevilla  (Sevilla,  1891).— Zuniga,  Anales  de  Sevilla,  ann. 
1477,  n.  5. 

^  Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  ii,  cap.  xcv. 


26  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

of  the  land.^  The  example  made  of  Yanez  brought  encourage- 
ment, but  the  work  of  restoring  order  was  slow.  Even  in  1482 
the  representatives  of  the  towns  of  Galicia  appealed  to  the 
sovereigns,  stating  that  there  had  long  been  neither  law  nor 
justice  there  and  begging  that  a  justizia  mayor  be  appointed, 
armed  with  full  powers  to  reduce  the  land  to  order.  They  espe- 
cially asked  for  the  destruction  of  the  rmmerous  castles  of  those 
who,  having  little  land  and  few  vassals  to  support  them,  lived 
by  robbery  and  pillage,  and  with  them  they  classed  the  fortified 
churches  held  by  prelates.  At  the  same  time  they  represented  that 
homicide  had  been  so  universal  that,  if  all  murderers  were  pun- 
ished, the  greater  part  of  the  land  would  be  ruined,  and  they 
suggested  that  culprits  be  merely  made  to  serve  at  their  own 
expense  in  the  war  with  Granada.^  With  the  support  of  the 
well-disposed,  however,  the  royal  power  gradually  made  itself 
felt;  they  lent  efficient  support  to  the  royal  representatives; 
forty-six  robber  castles  were  razed  and  fifteen  hundred  robbers 
and  murderers  fled  from  the  province,  which  became  compara- 
tively peaceful  and  orderly — a  change  confirmed  when,  in  1486, 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  went  thither  personally  to  complete  the 
work.  Yet  it  was  not  simply  by  spasmodic  effort  that  the  pro- 
tection of  the  laws  was  secured  for  the  population.  Constant 
vigilance  was  exercised  to  see  that  the  judges  were  strict  and 
impartial.  In  1485,  1488  and  1490  we  hear  of  searching  inves- 
tigations made  into  the  action  of  all  the  corregidores  of  the 
kingdom  to  see  that  they  administered  justice  without  fear  or 
favor.  Juezes  de  Residencia,  as  they  were  called,  armed  with 
almost  full  royal  authority,  were  dispatched  to  all  parts  of  the 
kingdom,  as  a  regular  system,  to  investigate  and  report  on  the 
conduct  of  all  royal  officials,  from  governors  down,  with  power 
to  punish  for  injustice,  oppression,  or  corruption,  subject  always 
to  appeal  in  larger  cases  to  the  royal  council,  and  the  detailed 
instructions  given  to  them  show  the  minute  care  exercised  over 
all  details  of  administration.  Bribery,  also,  which  was  almost 
universal  in  the  courts,  was  summarily  suppressed  and  all  judges 
were  forbidden  to  receive  presents  from  suitors.^    To  maintain 


*  Ferreiro,  Fueros  Municipales  de  Santiago,  II,  65  (Santiago,  1896). 

2  Ibidem,  II,  314. 

'  L.  Marinsei  Siculi  Lib.  xix,  xxi. — Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  ii,  cap.  xxvii,  Ixxviii, 
xcvi,  xcvii,  xcviii;  P.  in,  cap.  xxxix,  Ixvi,  c,  cxxvii. — Capitulos  hechos  por  el 
rey  y  la  reyna  en  Sevilla  a  ix  de  Junio  de  M.  y  d.  (sine  nota). 


Chap.  I]  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE  27 

constant  watchfulness  over  them  a  secret  service  was  organized 
of  trustworthy  inspectors  who  circulated  throughout  the  land 
in  disguise  and  furnished  reports  as  to  their  proceedings  and 
reputation/  Attention,  moreover,  was  paid  to  the  confused 
jurisprudence  of  the  period.  Since  the  confirmation  of  the  Siete 
Pariidas  of  Alfonso  X,  in  1348,  and  the  issue  at  the  same  time 
of  the  Ordenamiento  de  Alcald,  there  had  been  countless  laws 
and  edicts  published,  some  of  them  conflicting  and  many  that 
had  grown  obsolete  though  still  legally  in  force.  The  greatest 
jurist  of  the  day,  Alfonso  Diaz  de  Montalvo,  was  employed  to 
gather  from  these  into  a  code  all  that  were  applicable  to  ex- 
isting conditions  and  further  to  supplement  their  deficiencies, 
and  this  code,  known  as  the  Ordenanzas  Reales,  was  accepted 
and  confirmed  by  the  Cortes  of  Toledo  in  1480.^  This  reconstruc- 
tion of  Castilian  jurisprudence  was  completed  for  the  time  when, 
in  1491,  Montalvo  brought  out  an  edition  of  the  Siete  Partidas, 
noting  what  provisions  had  become  obsolete  and  adding  what 
was  necessary  of  the  more  modern  laws.  The  result  of  all  these 
strenuous  labors  is  seen  in  the  admiring  exclamation  of  Peter 
Martyr,  in  1492,  "Thus  we  have  peace  and  concord,  hitherto 
unknown  in  Spain.  Justice,  which  seems  to  have  abandoned 
other  lands,  pervades  these  kingdoms."^  The  inestimable  benefits 
resulting  from  this  are  probably  due  more  especially  to  Isabella. 
Yet  I  have  been  led  to  the  conviction  that  her  share  in  the 
administration  of  her  kingdom  has  been  exaggerated.  The 
chroniclers  of  the  period  were  for  the  most  part  Castilians  who 
would  naturally  seek  to  subordinate  the  action  of  the  Aragonese 
intruder,  and  subsequent  writers,  in  their  eagerness  to  magnify 
the  reputation  of  Isabella,  have  followed  the  example.  In  the 
copious  royal  correspondence  with  the  officials  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion the  name  of  Isabella  rarely  appears.  To  those  in  Castile 
as  in  Aragon  Ferdinand  mostly  writes  in  the  first  person  singular, 
without  even  using  the  pluralis  majestatis;  the  receiver  of  con- 
fiscations is  mi  receptor,  the  royal  treasury  is  mi  camera  e  fisco; 


*  Galindez  de  Carvajal  (Coleccion  de  Documentos  para  la  Historia  de  Espafi?  . 
XVIII,  236).  '  Bernaldez,  cap.  xlii. 

'  Pet.  Martyr.  Angler.  Lib.  v,  Epist.  cviii.  As  Cardinal  Ximenes  says  in  his 
letter  of  advice  to  Cardinal  Adrian  as  to  the  conduct  of  Charles  V  in  taking 
possession  of  his  inheritance,  "  por  lo  qual  fue  ella  tan  poderosisima  en  su  reyno, 
que  todos  del  mayor  a  el  menor  temian  virgam  ferream  de  su  justicia,  y  asi  des- 
truyo  toda  la  tirannia."  (Valladares,  Semanario  Enidito,  XX,  237). 


28  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

the  Council  of  the  Inquisition  is  mi  consejo.  In  spite  of  the 
agreement  of  1474,  the  signature  Yo  la  Reina  rarely  appears 
alongside  of  Yo  el  Rey,  and  still  rarer  are  Ferdinand's  allusions 
to  la  Serenissima  Reina,  mi  muy  cara  e  muy  amada  muger,  while 
in  the  occasional  letters  issued  by  Isabella  during  her  husband's 
absence,  she  is  careful  to  adduce  his  authority  as  that  of  el  Rey 
mi  senor.^  It  is  scarce  likely  that  this  preponderance  of  Ferdi- 
nand was  confined  to  directing  the  affairs  of  the  Holy  Office. 

There  has  been  a  tendency  of  late  to  regard  the  Inquisition 
as  a  political  engine  for  the  conversion  of  Spain  from  a  medieval 
feudal  monarchy  to  one  of  the  modern  absolute  type,  but  this 
is  an  error.  The  change  effected  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
and  confirmed  by  their  grandson  Charles  V  was  almost  wholly 
wrought,  as  it  had  been  two  centuries  earlier  in  France,  by  the 
extension  and  enforcement  of  the  royal  jurisdiction,  super- 
seding that  of  the  feudatories.^  In  Castile  the  latter  had  virtually 
ceased  to  be  an  instrument  of  good  during  the  long  period  of 
turbulence  which  preceded  the  accession  of  Isabella;  something 
evidently  was  needed  to  fill  the  gap;  the  zealous  and  efficient 
administration  of  justice,  which  I  have  described,  not  only 
restored  order  to  the  community  but  went  far  to  exalt  the  royal 
power,  and,  while  it  abased  the  nobles,  it  reconciled  the  people 
to  possible  usurpations  which  were  so  beneficent.  In  the  con- 
soUdation  and  maintenance  of  this  no  agency  was  so  effective  as 
the  institution  known  as  the  Santa  Hermandad. 


^  Archive  Gen.  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  Libros  i,  ii. 

^  The  limitations  on  the  royal  jurisdiction  are  exemplified  by  the  unseemly 
contest  at  Alcald.  de  Henares,  in  1485-6,  between  Isabella  and  the  Archbishop 
Gonzdlez  de  Mendoza,  respecting  her  right  to  administer  justice  within  his 
province.  It  lasted  from  December  till  the  time  for  opening  the  campaign  against 
Granada,  when  she  removed  to  Cordova  without  having  established  her  claim. 
— Francisco  de  Medina,  Vida  del  Cardenal  Mendoza  (Mem.  hist,  espanol, 
VI,  264). 

Yet  her  jurisdiction  was  one  of  the  points  on  which  Isabella  wisely  insisted 
with  the  utmost  firmness.  To  quote  Cardinal  Ximenes  again — "  Ante  todo  la 
dicha  Reyna  cuidaba  de  defender  su  jurisdiccion  Real,  viendo  que  por  ella  los 
Reyes  en  Castilla  se  hacen  mas  poderosos  y  mas  temidos  de  sus  vasallos"  (Valla- 
dares,  Semanario  Erudito,  XX,  238).  When,  in  1491,  the  royal  court  at  Valla- 
dolid,  presided  over  by  Alonzo  de  Valdevielfo,  Bishop  of  Leon,  wrongfully 
allowed  an  appeal  to  Rome,  she  promptly  dismissed  the  bishop  and  all  the 
judges  and  replaced  them  with  Juan  Arias  del  Villar,  Bishop  of  Oviedo,  and 
other  assessors. — Cronicon  de  Valladolid  (Coleccion  de  Documentos  para  la  His- 
toria  de  Espana,  XIII,  184-5).— Galindez  de  Carbajal  (Ibid.  XVIII,  278). 


Chap.  I]  LA  SANTA  HERMANDAD  29 

Hermandades— brotherhoods  or  associations  for  the  main- 
tenance of  public  peace  and  private  rights— were  no  new  thing. 
In  the  troubles  of  1282,  caused  by  the  rebelhon  of  Sancho  IV 
against  his  father,  the  first  idea  of  his  supporters  seems  to  have 
been  the  formation  of  such  organizations.^  In  these  associa- 
tions, however,  the  pohce  functions  were  subordinated  to  the 
political  object  of  supporting  the  pretensions  of  Sancho  IV  and, 
recognizing  their  danger,  he  dissolved  them  as  soon  as  he  felt  the 
throne  assured  to  him.  After  his  death,  his  widow  the  regent 
Dona  Maria  de  Molina,  organized  them  anew  for  the  protection 
of  her  child,  Fernando  IV,  and  again  in  1315,  when  she  was  a 
second  time  regent  in  the  minority  of  her  grandson,  Alfonso  XI.^ 

The  idea  was  a  fruitful  one  and  speecUly  came  to  be  recognized 
as  a  potent  instrumentahty  in  the  struggle  with  local  disorder 
and  violence.  Perhaps  the  earliest  Hermandad  of  a  purely 
pohce  character,  similar  to  the  later  ones,  was  that  entered  into 
in  1302  between  Toledo,  Talavera  and  Villareal  to  repress  the 
the  robberies  and  murders  committed  by  the  Golfines  in  the 
district  of  Xara.  Fernando  IV  not  only  confirmed  the  associa- 
tion but  ordered  the  inhabitants  to  render  it  due  assistance, 
and  subsequent  royal  letters  of  the  same  purport  were  issued 
in  1303,  1309,  1312  and  1315.'  In  1386  Juan  I  framed  a  general 
law  providing  for  the  organization  and  functions  of  Hermandades, 
but  if  any  were  formed  under  it  at  the  time  they  have  left  no 
traces  of  their  activity.  In  1418  this  law  was  adopted  as  the 
constitution  of  one  which  organized  itself  in  Santiago,  but  this 
accompHshed  Uttle  and,  in  1421,  the  guilds  and  confraternities 
of  the  city  united  in  another  for  mutual  support  and  succor." 
There  was,  in  fact,  at  this  time,  at  least  nominally,  a  general 
Hermandad,  probably  organized  under  the  statute  of  Juan  I 
and  possessing  written  charters  and  privileges  and  customs  and 
revenues,  with  full  jurisdiction  to  try  and  condemn  offenders. 
It  commanded  Uttle  respect,  however,  for  it  complained,  in 
1418,  to  Juan  II  of  interference  with  its  revenues  and  work,  in 

1  Memorial  historico  espanol,  T.  II,  pp.  68,  72,  86,  94,  102. 

^  Benavides,  Memorias  de  Fernando  IV,  Coleccion  Diplomdtica,  T.  II,  pp.  3, 
7,  46,  75,  81,  178  (Madrid,  I860).— Vicente  Santamaria  de  Paredes,  Curso  de 
Derecho  Politico,  p.  509  (Madrid,  1883).— Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos  de  Leon 
y  Castilla,  I,  247,  300  (Madrid,  1861). 

^  Benavides,  op.  cit.  II,  363. 

*  Ferreiro,  Fueros  Municipales  de  Santiago,  III,  44. 


30 


THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 


response  to  which  Juan  vigorously  prohibited  all  royal  and  local 
judges   and  officials  from  impeding   the   Hermandades  in  any 
manner.    The  continuity,  nominal  at  least,  of  this  with  subsequent 
organizations    is   shown   by  the  confirmation  of    this  utterance 
by  Juan  II  in  1423,  by  FercUnand  and  Isabella  in  1485,  by  Juana 
la  Loca  in  1512  and  1518,  by  Phihp  II  in  1561,  by  Phihp  III  in 
1601  and  by  Phihp  IV  in  1621.^      In  the  increasing  disorder  of 
the  times,  however,  it  was  impossible,  at  that  period,  to  maintain 
the  efficiency  of  the  body.     In  1443  an  attempt  was  made  to 
reconstruct  it,  but  as  soon  as  it  endeavored  to  repress  the  law- 
less nobles  and  laid  siege  to  Pedro  Lopez  de  Ayala  in  Salvatierra 
its  forces  were  cut  to  pieces  and  dispersed  by  Pedro  Fernandez 
de  Velasco.2     goj^e  twenty  years  later,  in  1465,  when  the  dis- 
orders under   Henry  IV  were  culminating,  another   effort  was 
made.     The  suffering  people  organized  and  taxed  themselves  to 
raise  a  force  of  1800  horsemen  to  render  the  roads  safe,  and  they 
endeavored  to  bring  the  number  up  to  3000.     It  was  a  popular 
movement  against  the  nobles  and  the  king  hailed  it  as  the  work 
of  God  who  was  hfting  up  the  humble  against  the  great.     He 
empowered  them  to  administer  justice  without  appeal  except 
to  himself,  he  told  them  that  they  had  well  earned  the  name  of 
Santa  Hermandad  and  he  urged  them  earnestly  to  go  forward  in 
the  good  work.     The  attempt  had  considerable  success  for  a 
time,  but  it  soon  languished  and  was  dissolved  for  lack  of  the 
means   required    to    carry   it   on.^      Again,  in  1473,   there  was 
another   endeavor   to   form   a   Hermandad,  but  the  anarchical 
forces  were  too  dominant  for  its  successful  organization.* 

As  soon  as  the  victory  of  Toro,  in  March,  1476,  gave  promise 
of  settled  government,  the  idea  of  reviving  the  Hermandades 
occurred  to  Alfonso  de  Quintanilla,  Contador  Mayor,  or  Chief 
Auditor,  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  With  their  approval  he 
broached  the  subject  to  leading  citizens  of  the  principal  towns 
in  Leon  and  Old  Castile;  deputies  were  sent  to  meet  at  Duefias 
and  the   project  was  debated.     So  many  obstacles  presented 

1  Coleccion  de  Privilegios,  T.  VI,  p.  327  (Madrid,  1833). 

2  Cronica  de  Don  Juan  II,  ano  xxxvii,  cap.  i. 

3  Cortes  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  III,  795. 

*  Castillo,  Cronica  de  Don  Enrique  IV,  cap.  Ixxxvii,  xc— Barrantes,  Ilustra- 
ciones  etc.  Lib.  vii,  cap.  xxviii.— Garibay,  Compendio  Historial,  Lib.  xvii,  cap. 
xxxi.— Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  III,  103  (Madrid,  1829).— Bienvenido,  Oliver  y 
Esteller  (Boletin,  XIV,  382). 


Chap.  I]  LA  SANTA  HERMANDAD  31 

themselves  that  it  would  have  been  abandoned  but  for  an 
eloquent  argument  by  Quintanilla.  His  plan  was  adopted, 
but  so  fearful  were  the  deputies  that  the  taxes  necessary  for  its 
maintenance  might  become  permanent  that  they  limited  its 
duration  to  three  years.  Under  the  impulse  of  the  sovereigns 
it  rapidly  took  shape  and  was  organized  with  the  Duke  of  Villa- 
hermosa,  natural  brother  of  Ferdinand,  at  its  head/  No  time 
was  lost  in  extending  it  throughout  the  kingdoms,  in  spite  of 
resistance  on  the  part  of  those  who  regarded  with  well-founded 
apprehension  not  only  its  efficiency  as  a  means  of  coercing  male- 
factors but  as  a  dangerous  development  of  the  royal  power. 
Seville,  for  instance,  recalcitrated  and  only  yielded  to  a  per- 
emptory command  from  Isabella  in  June,  1477.^  One  of  the 
reasons  assigned,  in  1507,  by  Ferdinand  for  assenting  to  the 
demoralizing  arrangement  under  which  the  Archbishop  of  Com- 
postella  resigned  his  see  in  favor  of  his  natural  son,  was  that  he 
had  received  the  royal  judges  and  the  Hermandad  throughout 
his  province,  in  opposition  to  the  will  of  the  nobles  and  gentry.^ 
When,  in  1479,  Alonso  Carrillo  and  the  Marquis  of  Villena  made 
a  final  attempt  to  urge  the  King  of  Portugal  to  another  invasion 
of  Castile,  one  of  the  arguments  advanced  was  the  hatred  enter- 
tained for  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  in  consequence  of  the  taxes 
levied  to  support  the  three  thousand  horsemen  of  the  Herman- 
clad.^  In  some  provinces  the  resistance  was  obstinate.  In  1479 
we  find  Isabella  writing  to  the  authorities  of  Biscay,  expressing 
surprise  at  the  neglect  of  the  royal  orders  and  threatening 
condign  punishment  for  further  delay,  notwithstanding  which 
repeated  commands  were  requisite,  and  it  was  not  till  ]  488  that 
the  stubborn  Biscayans  submitted,  while  soon  afterward  com- 
plaints came  from  Guipuzcoa  that  the  local  courts  neutralized 
it  by  admitting  appeals  from  its  sentences.^  It  was  in  the  same 
year  that  Ferdinand  obtained  from  the  Cortes  of  Saragossa 
assent  to  the  introduction  of  the  Hermandad  in  his  kingdom 
of  Aragon,  but  the  Aragonese,  always  jealous  of  the  royal  power, 

*  Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  ii,  cap.  li. — L.  Marinsei  Siculi  de  Reb.  Hisp.  Lib.  xix. 
—^1.  Anton.  Nebriss.  Decad.  I,  Lib.  vi,  cap.  1-3. — Garibay,  Comp.  Historial, 
Lib.  XVIII,  cap.  viii. 

^  Zuniga,  Afiales  de  Sevilla,  ann.  1477,  No.  1. 

'  Zurita,  Hist,  del  Rey  Hernando,  Lib.  viii,  cap.  V. — Galindez  de  Carvajal 
(Coleccion  de  Documentos  para  la  Historia  de  Espaiia,  XVIII,  319). 

*■  Barrantes,  Ilustraciones  etc.  Lib.  viii,  cap.  xx. 

5  Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  I,  70,  124,  143,  183;  III,  103. 


32  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

chafed  under  it  for,  in  December,  1493,  Isabella,  writing  from 
Saragossa,  expresses  a  fear  that  the  Cortes  may  suppress  it, 
though  it  is  the  only  means  of  enforcing  justice  there,  and  in 
the  Cortes  of  Mongon,  in  1510,  Ferdinand  was  obliged  to  approve 
a  fuero  abolishing  it  and  forbidding  for  the  future  anything  of 
the  kind  to  be  established/  In  1490  the  independent  kingdom 
of  Navarre  adopted  the  system  and  co-operated  with  its  neigh- 
bors by  allowing  malefactors  to  be  followed  across  the  border 
and  extraditing  them  when  caught — even  absconding  debtors 
being  thus  tracked  and  surrendered.^  The  institution  thus 
founded  was  watched  with  Isabella's  customary  care.  In  1483 
complaints  arose  of  bribery  and  extortion,  when  she  summoned 
a  convention  at  Pinto  of  representatives  from  all  the  provinces, 
where  the  guilty  were  punished  and  abuses  were  reformed.^ 

The  Santa  Hermandad  thus  formed  a  mounted  military 
police  which  covered  the  whole  kingdom,  under  the  Duke  of 
Villahermosa,  who  appointed  the  captains  and  summoned  the 
force  to  any  point  where  trouble  was  threatened.  Each  centre 
of  population  elected  two  alcaldes,  one  a  gentleman  and  the 
other  a  tax-payer  or  commoner,  and  levied  a  tax  to  defray  the 
expense  of  the  organization.  The  alcaldes  selected  the  quad- 
rilleros,  or  privates,  and  held  courts  which  dispensed  summary 
justice  to  delinquents,  bound  by  no  formalities  and  required  to 
listen  to  no  legal  pleadings.  Their  decision  was  final,  save  an 
appeal  to  the  throne;  their  jurisdiction  extended  over  all  crimes 
of  violence  and  theft  and  they  could  inflict  stripes,  mutilation, 
or  death  by  shooting  with  arrows.  The  quadrillero  in  pursuit 
of  an  offender  was  required  to  follow  him  for  five  leagues,  rais- 
ing the  hue  and  cry  as  he  went,  and  joined  by  those  of  the  coun- 
try through  which  he  passed,  who  kept  up  the  hunt  until  the 
fugitive  was  either  caught  or  driven  beyond  the  frontier.* 

Great  as  were  the  services  of  the  Hermandad  in  repressing 
the  turbulence  of  the  nobles  and  rendering  the  roads  safe,  its 
cost  was  a  source  of  complaint  to  the  communities  which  de- 
frayed it.     This  was  by  no  means  small;  in  1485  it  was  com- 

»  Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  iii,  cap.  xcv.— Palafox,  Obras,  VII,  338  (Madrid,  1762). 
— Fueros  de  Aragon,  fol.  13  (Saragossa,  1624). 

^  Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  IV,  89.  '  Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  iii,  cap.  xii. 

*  Novfs.  Recop.  Tit.  xxv,  Lib.  xii. — Barrantes,  Ilustraciones  etc.  Lib.  viii, 
cap  xiii. — Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  IV,  295. — See  also  the  description  of  the  per- 
fected system  which  excited  the  admiration  of  the  Venetian  ambassador,  Paolo 
Tiepolo,  in  1563  (Relazioni,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  21). 


Chap.  I]  LA  SANTA  HERMANDAD  33 

puted  at  32,000,000  maravedis  and  subsequently  it  increased 
greatly;  it  was  met  by  a  tax  of  18,000  maravedis  on  every  hun- 
dred hearths  and  the  money  was  not  handled  by  the  communi- 
ties but  was  paid  to  the  crown/  Nominally  the  organization 
was  in  their  hands,  but  virtually  it  was  controlled  by  the  sover- 
eigns, and  when,  in  1498,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  with  an  appear- 
ance of  generosity,  relieved  the  taxpayers  and  assumed  to  meet 
the  expenses  from  the  royal  revenues,  although  they  left  the 
election  of  the  alcaldes  and  quadrilleros  in  the  hands  of  the 
local  populations,  yet  the  result  was  inevitable  in  subjecting  it 
still  more  closely  to  the  crown.^  The  institution  became  perma- 
nent, and  its  modern  development  is  seen  in  the  guarda  civil. 
None  of  the  reforms  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  was  so  efficient 
in  restoring  order  and  none  did  more  to  centrahze  power.  It 
was  not  only  a  rudimentary  standing  army  which  could  be 
concentrated  speedily  to  suppress  disorder,  but  it  carried  the 
royal  jurisdiction  into  every  corner  of  the  land  and  made  the 
royal  authority  supreme  everywhere.  It  was  practically  an 
alliance  between  the  crown  and  the  people  against  the  cen- 
trifugal forces  of  feudalism,  without  which  even  the  policy  of 
Ferdinand  and  the  iron  firmness  of  Ximenes  might  have  failed 
to  win  in  the  final  struggle.  When  municipal  independence 
likewise  perished  in  the  defeat  of  the  Comunidades,  the  only 
power  left  standing  in  Spain  was  that  of  the  throne,  which  thus 
became  absolute  and  all-pervading.  The  new  absolutism  was 
embodied  in  the  self-effacing  declaration  of  the  Cortes  of  Valla- 
dohd,  in  1523,  to  Charles  V,  that  the  laws  and  customs  were 
subject  to  the  king,  who  could  make  and  revoke  them  at  his 
pleasure,  for  he  was  the  living  law.^  How  immense  was  the 
revolution  and  how  speedily  accomplished  is  seen  in  the  con- 
trast between  the  time  when  the  Count  of  Benavente  jeered  at 
a  royal  safe-conduct  and  the  people  of  Gahcia  scarce  dared  to 
receive  a  royal  commissioner,  and  some  sixty  years  later  when, 
in  the  unruly  Basque  provinces,  the  people  of  San  Sebastian,  in 
1536,  appealed  to  the  Emperor  Charles  V  to  reheve  them  from 


*  Clemencin,  p.  139. 

^  Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  IV,  136,  164,  173,  185,  336,  338;  V,  669;  VI,  425.— 
Novfs  Recop.  Tit.  xxxv.  Lib.  xii,  ley  18. 

^  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  IV,  356  (Madrid,  1882)—"  E  las  leyes  e  cos- 
tunbres  son  sujetas  alos  Reys,  que  las  pueden  hazer  e  quitar  a  su  voluntad,  e 
vuestra  Alteza  es  ley  viba  e  animada  enlas  tierras." 

3 


34  THE  CASTILIAN  MONARCHY  [Book  I 

local  nuisances,  and  royal  letters  were  gravely  issued  forbidding 
the  butchers  of  that  town  from  erecting  new  stalls  or  skinning 
cattle  in  the  streets  and  restricting  the  latter  operation  to  places 
duly  assigned  for  the  purpose.^  Thus  the  crown  had  become 
absolute  and  its  interposition  could  be  invoked  for  the  minutest 
details  of  local  government.  He  reads  history  to  little  purpose 
who  imagines  that  this  was  the  work  of  the  Inquisition. 

Another  measure  of  no  little  importance  in  establishing  the 
royal  supremacy  was  the  virtual  incorporation  in  the  crown  of 
the  masterships  of  the  three  great  military  Orders  of  Santiago, 
of  Calatrava  and  of  Alcantara.  Under  Henry  IV  a  Master  of 
Santiago  had  been  able  to  keep  the  whole  kingdom  in  confusion, 
and  the  wealth  and  power  of  the  others,  although  not  so  great, 
were  sufficient  to  render  their  chiefs  the  equals  of  the  highest 
nobles.  From  Innocent  VIII,  in  1489,  Ferdinand  procured  a 
brief  granting  him  for  life  the  administration  of  all  three;  and 
in  her  will  Isabella  bequeathed  to  him  an  annual  income  of  ten 
millions  of  maravedis  from  their  revenues.^  As  Ferdinand's 
death  drew  near,  the  Orders  endeavored  to  be  released  from 
subjection,  claiming  that  they  could  be  governed  only  by  their 
own  members,  but  prudent  care  secured  in  time  from  Leo  X 
the  succession  in  the  masterships  to  Charles  V,  who,  after  Leo's 
death,  made  haste  to  obtain  from  Adrian  VI  a  bull  which 
annexed  them  in  perpetuity  to  the  crown.^ 

It  was  impossible  that  a  king  so  far-seeing  and  politic  as  Fer- 
dinand and  a  queen  so  pious  as  Isabella,  when  reducing  to  order 
the  chaos  which  they  found  in  Castile,  should  neglect  the  interest 
of  the  faith  on  which,  according  to  medieval  beUef,  all  social 
order  was  based.  There  were  in  fact  burning  religious  questions 
which,  to  sensitive  piety,  might  seem  even  more  urgent  than 
protection  to  life  and  property.  To  comprehend  the  intricacy 
of  the  situation  will  require  a  somewhat  extended  retrospect  into 
the  relations  between  the  several  races  occupying  the  Peninsula. 


'  Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  IV,  333. 

*  Mariana,  Lib.  xxviii,  cap.  xi;  Tom.  IX,  Append,  p.  xix. — Giustiniani,  His- 
torie  degl'Ordini  Militari,  pp.  386,  425,  460  (Venezia,  1692). 

'  Cartas  de  Ximenes  de  Cisneros,  pp.  120,  131,  181  (Madrid,  1867).— Wadding, 
Annales  Minorum,  ann.  1516,  n.  12. — Gachard,  Correspondence  entre  Charles- 
Quint  et  Adrien  VI,  p.  cxi  (Bruxelles,  1859). 


CHAPTER  11. 

THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS. 

The  influences  under  which  human  character  can  be  modified, 
for  good  or  for  evil,  are  abundantly  illustrated  in  the  conversion 
of  the  Spaniards  from  the  most  tolerant  to  the  most  intolerant 
nation  in  Europe.  Apologists  may  seek  to  attribute  the  hatred 
felt  for  Jews  and  Moors  and  heretics,  in  the  Spain  of  the  fifteenth 
and  succeeding  centuries,  to  an  inborn  peculiarity  of  the  race— 
a  cosa  de  Espafia  which  must  be  accepted  as  a  fact  and  requires 
no  explanation,^  but  such  facts  have  their  explanation,  and  it  is 
the  business  of  the  expositor  of  history  to  trace  them  to  their 
causes. 

The  vicissitudes  endured  by  the  Jewish  race,  from  the  period 
when  Christianity  became  dominant,  may  well  be  a  subject  of 
pride  to  the  Hebrew  and  of  shame  to  the  Christian.  The  annals 
of  mankind  afford  no  more  brilliant  instance  of  steadfastness 
under  adversity,  of  unconquerable  strength  through  centuries 
of  hopeless  oppression,  of  inexhaustible  elasticity  in  recuper- 
ating from  apparent  destruction,  and  of  conscientious  adherence 
to  a  faith  whose  only  portion  in  this  life  was  contempt  and 
suffering.  Nor  does  the  long  record  of  human  perversity  present 
a  more  damning  illustration  of  the  facihty  with  which  the  evil 
passions  of  man  can  justify  themselves  with  the  pretext  of  duty, 
than  the  manner  in  which  the  Church,  assuming  to  represent 
Him  who  died  to  redeem  mankind,  deliberately  planted  the 
seeds  of  intolerance  and  persecution  and  assiduously  cultivated 
the  harvest  for  nearly  fifteen  hundred  years.  It  was  in  vain 
that  Jesus  on  the  cross  had  said  "Father,  forgive  them,  for  they 

1  Thus  Father  Gams  attributes  the  Spanish  Inquisition  to  the  national  pecu- 
liarity of  the  Spaniard,  who  requires  that  the  State  should  represent  God  on 
earth,  and  that  Christianity  should  control  all  public  life;  he  demands  unity  of 
faith  and  not  freedom  of  faith.  The  Inquisition  is  an  institution  for  which  the 
Church  has  no  responsibility.— P.  Pius  Gams,  O.  S.  B.,  Die  Kirchengeschichte 
von  Spanien,  III,  ii,  7,  8,  11,  12. 

(35) 


36  THE  JEWS  AND   THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

know  not  what  they  do";  it  was  in  vain  that  St.  Peter  was  re- 
corded as  urging,  in  excuse  for  the  Crucifixion,  "And  now, 
brethren,  I  wot  that  through  ignorance  ye  cUd  it,  as  did  also 
your  rulers";  the  Church  taught  that,  short  of  murder,  no 
punishment,  no  suffering,  no  obloquy  was  too  severe  for  the 
descendants  of  those  who  had  refused  to  recognize  the  Messiah, 
and  had  treated  him  as  a  rebel  against  human  and  divine  author- 
ity. Under  the  canon  law  the  Jew  was  a  being  who  had  scarce 
the  right  to  existence  and  could  only  enjoy  it  under  conditions 
of  virtual  slavery.  As  recently  as  1581,  Gregory  XIII  declared 
that  the  guilt  of  the  race  in  rejecting  and  crucifying  Christ  only 
grows  deeper  with  successive  generations,  entailing  on  its  mem- 
bers perpetual  servitude,  and  this  authoritative  assertion  was 
embodied  in  an  appendix  to  the  Corpus  Juris.^  When  Paramo, 
about  the  same  period,  sought  to  justify  the  expulsion  of  the 
Jews  from  Spain  in  1492,  he  had  no  difficulty  in  citing  canons 
to  prove  that  FercUnand  and  Isabella  could  righteously  have 
seized  all  their  property  and  have  sold  their  bodies  into  slavery.^ 
Man  is  ready  enough  to  oppress  and  despoil  his  fellows  and, 
w^hen  taught  by  his  religious  guides  that  justice  and  humanity 
are  a  sin  against  God,  spoliation  and  oppression  become  the 
easiest  of  duties.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  for  the  infinite 
wrongs  committed  on  the  Jews  during  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
for  the  prejudices  that  are  even  yet  rife  in  many  quarters,  the 
Church  is  mainly  if  not  wholly  responsible.  It  is  true  that  occa- 
sionally she  lifted  her  voice  in  mild  remonstrance  when  some 
massacre  occurred  more  atrocious  than  usual,  but  these  massa- 
cres were  the  direct  outcome  of  the  hatred  and  contempt  which 
she  so  zealously  inculcated,  and  she  never  took  steps  by  punish- 
ment to  prevent  their  repetition.  Alonso  de  Espina  merely 
repeats  the  currently  received  orthodox  ethics  of  the  subject 
when  he  tells  us  that  to  oppress  the  Jew  is  true  kindness  and 
piety,  for  when  he  finds  that  his  impiety  brings  suffering  he  will 
be  led  to  the  fear  of  God  and  that  he  who  makes  another  do 
right  is  greater  in  the  sight  of  God  than  he  who  does  right  him- 
self.^ 

In  view  of  Spanish  abhorrence  of  Jews  and  Saracens  during 


^  Septimi  Decretal.  Lib.  v,  Tit.  i,  cap.  5. 

^  Paramo  de  Orig.  Offic.  S.  Inquisitionis,  p.  164. 

3  Fortalicium  Fidei,  fol.  147b  (Ed.  1494). 


Chap.  II]  DEVELOPMENT  OF  INTOLERANCE  37 

the  last  five  or  six  centuries  it  is  a  fact  worthy  of  note  that  the 
Spanish  nations  of  the  medieval  period  were  the  latest  to  yield 
to  this  impulsion  of  the  Church.  The  explanation  of  this  lies 
partly  in  the  relations  between  the  several  races  in  the  Penin- 
sula and  partly  in  the  independent  attitude  which  Spain  main- 
tained towards  the  Holy  See  and  its  indisposition  to  submit  to 
the  dictation  of  the  Church.  To  appreciate  fully  the  trans- 
formation which  culminated  in  the  establishment  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, and  to  understand  the  causes  leading  to  it,  will  require  a 
brief  review  of  the  position  occupied  by  the  Jew  and  the  Saracen 
towards  the  Church  and  the  State. 

In  the  primitive  Church  there  would  seem  to  have  been  a 
feeling  of  equality,  if  not  of  cordiality,  between  Christian  and 
Jew.  When  it  was  deemed  necessary,  in  the  Apostolic  canons, 
to  forbid  bishops  and  priests  and  deacons,  as  well  as  laymen, 
from  fasting  or  celebrating  feasts  with  Jews,  or  partaking  of 
their  unleavened  bread,  or  giving  oil  to  their  synagogues,  or 
lighting  their  lamps,  this  argues  that  kindly  intercourse  between 
them  was  only  to  be  restricted  in  so  far  as  it  might  lead  to  re- 
ligious fellowship.^  This  kindly  intercourse  continued  but,  as 
the  Church  became  mostly  Gentile  in  its  membership,  the  preju- 
dices existing  against  the  Jew  in  the  Gentile  world  gathered 
strength  until  there  becomes  manifest  a  tendency  to  treat  him 
as  an  outcast.  Early  in  the  fourth  century  the  council  of  Elvira, 
held  under  the  lead  of  the  uncompromising  Hosius  of  Cordova, 
forbade  marriage  between  Christians  and  Jews,  because  there 
could  be  no  society  common  to  the  faithful  and  the  infidel;  no 
farmer  was  to  have  his  harvest  blest  by  a  Jew,  nor  was  any  one 
even  to  eat  with  him.^  St.  Augustin  was  not  quite  so  rigid, 
for  while  he  held  it  lawful  to  dissolve  marriage  between  the 
Christian  and  the  infidel,  he  argued  that  it  was  inexpedient.^ 
St.  Ambrose  was  one  of  the  earliest  to  teach  proscription  when 
he  reproved  Theodosius  the  Great  for  the  favor  shown  by  him 
to  Jews,  who  slew  Christ  and  who  deny  God  in  denying  his  Son, 
and  St.  John  Chrysostom  improved  on  this  by  publicly  preach- 
ing that  Christians  should  hold  no  intercourse  with  Jews,  whose 

*  Canon.  Apostol.  n.  69,  70. 

^  Concil.  Eliberitan.  cap.  16,  49,  50,  78. 

'  S.  August,  de  Adult.  Conjug.  Lib.  i,  cap.  xviii. 

*  S,  Ambros.  Epist.  XL,  n.  26. 


38  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

souls  were  the  habitations  of  demons  and  whose  synagogues 
were  their  playgrounds/  The  antagonism  thus  stimulated  found 
its  natural  expression,  in  415,  in  the  turbulent  city  of  Alexandria, 
where  quarrels  arose  resulting  in  the  shedding  of  Christian 
blood,  when  St.  Cyril  took  advantage  of  the  excitement  by  lead- 
ing a  mob  to  the  synagogues,  of  which  he  took  possession,  and 
then  abandoned  the  property  of  the  Jews  to  pillage  and  ex- 
pelled them  from  the  city,  which  they  had  inhabited  since  its 
foundation  by  Alexander.^  That  under  such  impulsion  these 
excesses  were  common  is  shown  by  the  frequent  repetition  of 
imperial  edicts  forbidding  the  maltreatment  of  Jews  and  the 
spoiling  and  burning  of  their  synagogues;  they  were  not  allowed 
to  erect  new  ones  but  were  to  be  maintained  in  possession  of 
those  existing.  At  the  same  time  the  commencement  of  legal 
disabilities  is  manifested  in  the  reiterated  prohibitions  of  the 
holding  of  Christian  slaves  by  Jews,  while  confiscation  and 
perpetual  exile  or  death  were  threatened  against  Jews  who 
should  convert  or  circumcise  Christians  or  marry  Christian 
wives.^  The  Church  held  it  to  be  a  burning  disgrace  that  a  Jew 
should  occupy  a  position  of  authority  over  Christians;  in  438 
it  procured  from  Theodosius  II  the  enactment  of  this  as  a  fixed 
principle,  and  we  shall  see  how  earnestly  it  labored  to  render 
this  a  part  of  the  public  law  of  Christendom.*  This  spirit  re- 
ceived a  check  from  the  Arianism  of  the  Gothic  conquerors  of 
the  Western  Empire.  Theodoric  ordered  the  privileges  of  the 
Jews  to  be  strictly  preserved,  among  which  was  the  important 
one  that  all  quarrels  between  themselves  should  be  settled  by 
their  own  judges,  and  he  sternly  repressed  all  persecution.  When 
a  mob  in  Rome  burned  a  synagogue  he  commanded  the  punish- 
ment of  the  perpetrators  in  terms  of  severe  displeasure;  when 
attempts  were  made  to  invade  the  right  of  the  Jews  of  Genoa 
he  intervened  effectually,  and  when  in  Milan  the  clergy  en- 
deavored to  obtain  possession  of  the  synagogue  he  peremptorily 


'  S.  Joh.  Chrysost.  adv.  Judseos  Orat.  i,  n.  .3,  4,  6.  Chrysostom's  indignation 
was  especially  aroused  by  the  popular  belief  among  Christians  in  the  peculiar 
sanctity  of  the  synagogues,  which  rendered  oaths  taken  in  them  more  binding 
than  in  a  church.  i 

'  Socrat.  H.  E.  vii,  xiii. 

3  Lib.  XVI,  Cod.  Theodos.  Tit.  viii,  LI.  6,  9,  12,  21,  22,  25,  26,  27;  Tit.  ix,  LI. 
2,  3,  4,  5. 

*  Novell.  Theodos.  II,  Tit.  iii. 


Chap.  II]  PROGRESSIVE  INTOLERANCE  39 

forbade  it/  So  long  as  the  Wisigoths  remained  Arian  this  spirit 
prevailed  throughout  their  extensive  dominions,  although  the 
orthodox  were  allowed  to  indulge  their  growing  uncharitable- 
ness.  When  the  council  of  Agde,  in  506,  forbade  the  faithful  to 
banquet  or  even  to  eat  with  Jews  it  shows  that  social  intercourse 
still  existed  but  that  it  was  condemned  by  those  who  ruled  the 
Church.^  In  the  East  the  same  tendency  had  freer  opportunity 
of  expressing  itself  in  legislation,  as  when,  in  706,  the  council 
of  Constantinople  forbade  Christians  to  live  with  Jews  or  to 
bathe  with  them,  to  eat  their  unleavened  bread,  to  consult  them 
as  physicians  or  to  take  their  medicines.^ 

Gregory  the  Great  was  too  large-minded  to  approve  of  this 
growing  spirit  of  intolerance  and,  when  some  zealots  in  Naples 
attempted  to  prevent  the  Jews  from  celebrating  their  feasts,  he 
intervened  with  a  peremptory  prohibition  of  such  interference, 
arguing  that  it  would  not  conduce  to  their  conversion  and  that 
they  should  be  led  by  kindness  and  not  by  force  to  embrace  the 
faith,  all  of  which  was  embodied  in  the  canon  law  to  become 
conspicuous  through  its  non-observance.*  In  fact,  his  repeated 
enunciation  of  the  precept  shows  how  little  it  was  regarded 
even  in  his  own  time.^  When,  moreover,  large  numbers  of  Jews 
were  compelled  to  submit  to  baptism  in  southern  Gaul  he  wrote 
reprovingly  to  the  Bishops  Virgil  of  Aries  and  Theodore  of 
Marseilles,  but  this  did  not  prevent  St.  Avitus  of  Clermont, 
about  the  same  time,  from  baptizing  about  five  hundred,  who 
thus  saved  their  lives  from  the  fanatic  fury  of  the  populace.^ 

These  forced  conversions  in  Gothia  were  the  first  fruits  of  the 
change  of  religion  of  the  Wisigoths  from  Arianism  to  Catholic- 
ism.    The  Ostrogoths,  Theodoric  and  Theodatus,  had  expressly 


»  Edict.  Theoderici,  cap.  143.— Cassiodori  Variar.  iv,  33,  43;  v,37.   Cf.  in,  45. 

^  Concil.  Agathens.  ann.  506,  cap.  40.  This  was  embodied  in  the  canon  law 
(Gratian.  Deer.  Caus.  xxviii,  Q.  i,  cap.  14).  The  apologetic  tone  in  which 
Sidonius  ApoUinaris,  Bishop  of  Clermont,  speaks  of  Jews  whom  he  likes  and  who 
"  solent  hujusmodi  homines  honestas  habere  causas"  shows  that  the  more  enlight- 
ened churchmen  felt  that  any  favor  shown  to  the  proscribed  race  exposed  them 
to  animadversion  (Epistt.  Lib.  in,  Ep.  4;  Lib.  iv,  Ep.  5). 

'  Concil.  Quinisext.  cap.  11  (Deer.  Caus.  xxviii,  Q.  i,  cap.  13). 

*  Gregor.  PP.  I.    Epistt.  xiii,  12  (Decreti  Dist.  xlv,  cap.  3). 

«  Ejusd.  Epistt.  I,  10,  35;  ii,  32;  v,  8;  viii,  27;  ix,  6;  xiii,  12.  It  is  true  that 
Gregory  strongly  upheld  the  rule  that  Jews  should  hold  no  Christian  slaves,  but 
he  permitted  Christians  to  labor  on  their  lands  (Ibid,  iv,  21), 

'  Ibid.  I,  47. — Venantii  Fortunati  Miscell.  Lib.  v,  cap.  5. 


40  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

declared  that  they  could  not  interfere  with  the  religion  of  their 
subjects,  for  no  one  can  be  forced  unwillingly  to  believe.^ 
The  Wisigoths,  who  dominated  southern  Gaul  and  Spain,  when 
adapting  the  Roman  law  to  suit  their  needs,  had  contented  them- 
selves with  punishing  by  confiscation  the  Christian  who  turned 
Jew,  with  liberating  Christian  slaves  held  by  Jews,  and  with 
inflicting  the  death  penalty  on  Jewish  masters  who  should  force 
Christian  slaves  to  conversion,  besides  preserving  the  law  of 
Theodosius  II  prohibiting  Jews  from  holding  office  or  building 
new  synagogues.^  This  was  by  no  means  full  toleration,  but  it 
was  merciful  in  comparison  with  what  followed  the  conversion 
of  the  Goths  to  Catholicism.  The  change  commenced  promptly, 
though  it  did  not  at  once  reach  its  full  severity.  The  third 
council  of  Toledo,  held  in  May,  589,  to  condemn  the  Arian  heresy 
and  to  settle  the  details  of  the  conversion,  adopted  canons  which 
show  how  free  had  hitherto  been  the  intercourse  between  the 
races.  Jews  were  forbidden  to  have  Christian  wives  or  concu- 
bines or  servants,  and  all  children  sprung  from  such  unions  were 
to  be  baptized;  any  Christian  slave  circumcised  or  polluted 
with  Jewish  rites  was  to  be  set  free;  no  Jew  was  to  hold  an  office 
in  which  he  could  inflict  punishment  on  a  Christian,  and  this 
action  was  followed  by  some  further  disabilities  decreed  by  the 
council  of  Narbonne  in  December  of  the  same  year.^  That  free- 
dom of  discussion  continued  for  some  time  is  manifested  by 
the  audacity  of  a  Jew  named  Froganis,  not  long  afterwards,  who, 
as  we  are  told,  in  the  presence  of  all  the  nobles  of  the  court, 
exalted  the  synagogue  and  depreciated  the  Church ;  it  was  easier 
perhaps  to  close  his  mouth  than  to  confute  him,  for  Aurasius, 
Bishop  of  Toledo,  excommunicated  him  and  declared  him 
anathematized  by  the  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost  and  by  all 
the  celestial  hierarchy  and  cohorts.* 

The  greatest  churchman  of  the  day,  St.  Isidor  of  Seville,  whose 
career  of  forty  years  commenced  with  the  Catholic  revolution, 
did  what  in  him  lay  to  stimulate  and  justify  persecution.     His 


*  Cassiodor.  Variar.  ii,  27;  x,  26. 

'  Lex  Roman.  Visigoth.  Lib.  xvi,  Tit.  iii,  iv;  Novell.  Theodos.  II,  Tit.  iii 
(Ed.  Haenel,  pp.  250,  256-8). 

'  Concil.  Toletan.  Ill,  ann.  589,  cap.  xiv. — Concil.  Narbonn.  ann.  589,  cap. 
iv,  ix. 

*  Gotth.  Heine,  Biblioth.  Vet.  Monumentt.  Ecclesiasticor.  p.  118  (Lipsiae, 
1848). 


Chap.  II]  THE  JEWS  UNDER  THE  WISIGOTHS  4I 

treatise  against  the  Jews  is  not  vituperative,  as  are  so  many- 
later  controversial  writings,  but  he  proves  that  they  are  con- 
demned for  their  fathers'  sins  to  dispersion  and  oppression  until, 
at  the  end  of  the  world,  their  eyes  are  to  be  opened  and  they 
are  to  believe/  That  he  should  have  felt  called  upon  to  compose 
such  a  work  was  an  evil  sign,  and  still  more  evil  were  the  con- 
clusions which  he  taught.  They  could  not  fail  of  deplorable 
results,  as  was  seen  when  Sisebut  ascended  the  throne  in  612 
and  signalized  the  commencement  of  his  reign  by  a  forcible 
conversion  of  all  the  Jews  of  the  kingdom.  What  means  he 
adopted  we  are  not  told,  but  of  course  they  were  violent,  which 
St.  Isidor  mildly  reproves,  seeing  that  conversion  ought  to  be 
sincere,  but  which  yet  he  holds  to  be  strictly  within  the  com- 
petence of  the  Church.^  The  Church  in  fact  was  thus  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  question  whether  the  forcible  propagation 
of  the  faith  is  lawful.  This  is  so  repugnant  to  the  teachings  of 
Christ  that  it  could  scarce  be  accepted,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  sacrament  of  baptism  is  indelible,  so  the  convenient  doc- 
trine was  adopted  and  became  the  settled  policy  that,  while 
Christianity  was  not  to  be  spread  by  force,  unwilling  converts 
were  nevertheless  Christians;  they  were  not  to  be  permitted  to 
apostatize  and  were  subject  to  all  the  pains  and  penalties  of 
heresy  for  any  secret  inclination  to  their  own  religion.^      This 


*  S.  Isidori  Hispalens.  de  Fide  Cathol.  contra  Judaeos  Lib.  i,  cap.  28;  Lib.  11, 
cap.  5,  9. 

'  S.  Isidori  Chron.  n.  120;  De  Regibus  Gothorum,  n.  60;  Sententt.  Lib.  iii, 
cap.  51,  n.  4. 

In  the  perfected  doctrine  of  the  Church  it  was  simply  a  question  of  policy  and 
possibility  whether  the  faith  is  to  be  extended  by  force  or  not,  for  the  pope  is 
supreme  and  has  the  authority  to  punish  all,  whether  Jew  or  Gentile,  who  do 
not  conform  to  the  gospel. — Eymerici  Direct.  Inquisitor,  p.  353  (Ed.  Venet. 
1607). 

'  Concil.  Toletan.  IV,  ann.  633,  cap.  57 — adopted  into  the  canon  law  (Deer, 
cap.  5,  Dist.  XLv) — as  well  as  a  decretal  of  Gregory  IV — "  Jud£Ei  non  sunt  cogendi 
ad  fidem,  quam  tamen  si  invite  susceperint,  cogendi  sunt  retinere"  (Ibid.  cap.  4). 
See  also  LI.  Wisigoth.  Lib.  xii,  Tit.  ii,  1.  4  (Recared  I),  continued  in  Fuero 
Juzgo,  XII,  ii,  4. 

The  Jew  who  had  been  baptized  in  infancy,  or  who  accepted  baptism  as  an 
alternative  of  death,  and  reverted  to  Judaism  was  to  be  prosecuted  by  the  Inqui- 
sition as  a  heretic. — Nicholai,  PP.  IV.  Bull.  Turbato  corde,  1288  (BuUar.  Roman. 
I,  158,  179,  184,  263).— Cap.  13  in  Sexto,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  ii.— Bernard.  Guidon.  Prac- 
tica,  P.  v,  ^  v,  n.  1. — Pegnae  Comment,  in  Eymeric.  Direct.  Inquis.,  p.  349.    For 


42  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

fruitful  conception  led  to  infinite  misery,  as  we  shall  see  here- 
after, and  was  the  impelling  motive  which  created  the  Spanish 
Inquisition. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  extent  and  the  success  of  Sise- 
but's  measures,  the  Jews  soon  afterwards  reappear,  and  they 
and  the  conversos  became  the  subject  of  an  unintermittent 
series  of  ecclesiastical  and  secular  legislation  which  shows  that 
the  poUcy  so  unfortunately  adopted  could  only  have  attained 
its  end  by  virtual  extermination.  The  anvil  bade  fair  to  wear 
out  the  hammer — the  constancy  of  the  persecuted  exhausted 
the  ingenuity  of  the  persecutor.  With  the  conversion  to  Cathol- 
icism ecclesiastics  became  dominant  throughout  the  Wisigothic 
territories  and  to  their  influence  is  attributable  the  varied  series 
of  measures  which  occupied  the  attention  of  the  successive 
comicils  of  Toledo  from  633  until  the  Saracenic  invasion  in  711. 
Every  expedient  was  tried — the  seizure  of  all  Jewish  children, 
to  be  shut  up  in  monasteries  or  to  be  given  to  God-fearing  Chris- 
tians; the  alternative  of  expulsion  or  conversion,  to  the  enforce- 
ment of  which  all  kings  at  their  accession  were  to  take  a  solemn 
oath;  the  gentle  persuasives  of  shaving,  scourging,  confiscation 
and  exile.  That  the  people  at  large  did  not  share  in  the  intol- 
erance of  their  rulers  is  seen  in  the  prohibitions  of  social  inter- 
course, mixed  marriages,  and  the  holding  of  office.  The  spectre 
of  proselytism  was  evoked  in  justification  of  these  measures  as 
though  the  persecuted  Jew  would  seek  to  incur  its  dangers  even 
had  not  the  Talmud  declared  that  "a  proselyte  is  as  damaging  to 
Israel  as  an  ulcer  to  a  healthy  body."  The  enforced  conver- 
sions thus  obtained  were  regarded  naturally  with  suspicion  and 
the  converts  were  the  subjects  of  perpetual  animadversion.^ 

the  established  formula  of  interrogatory  of  Jews  see  MSS.  Bibl.  National  de 
France,  Collect.  Doat.,  T.  XXXVII,  fol.  258. 

The  forced  conversion  of  Jews,  so  frequent  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  gave 
rise  to  many  nice  questions,  exhaustively  debated  by  the  schoolmen.  The  sub- 
ject is  fully  treated  in  a  Tradatus  de  Judceorum  et  Christianorum  commimione,  etc., 
printed  in  Strassburg  about  1470  (Hain,  9465),  in  which,  for  convenient  use  and 
reference,  is  gathered  together  all  the  ecclesiastical  legislation  against  the  unfor- 
tunate race,  forming  a  deplorable  exhibition  of  human  perversity. 

I  Concil.  Toletan.  IV,  ann.  633,  cap.  58,  59,  60,  61,  62,  63,  64,  65,  66;  Cone. 
VI,  ann.  638,  cap.  3;  Cone.  VIII,  ann.  653,  cap.  12;  Cone.  IX,  ann.  6.55,  cap.  17; 
Cone.  X,  ann.  656,  cap.  7;  Cone.  XII,  ann.  681,  cap.  9;  Cone.  XIII,  ann.  683, 
cap.  9;  Cone.  XVI,  ann.  693,  cap.  1. 

LI.  Wisigoth.  Lib.  xii.  Tit.  ii,  11.  4-17;  Tit.  iii,  11.  1,  2,  10,  12,  16,  17,  19,  24 
(Fuero  Juzgo,  ibidem.). 


Ghap.  II]  THE  JEWS  UNDER  THE  WISIGOTHS  43 

Thus  the  Church  had  triumphed  and  the  toleration  of  the 
Arian  Goths  had  been  converted  into  persecuting  orthodoxy. 
History  repeats  itself  and,  eight  hundred  years  later,  we  shall 
see  the  same  process  with  the  same  results.  Toleration  was 
changed  into  persecution;  conversions  obtained  by  force,  or  by 
its  equivalent,  irresistible  pressure,  were  recognized  as  fictitious, 
and  the  unfortunate  converts  were  held  guilty  of  the  unpar- 
donable crime  of  apostasy.  Although  the  Goths  did  not  invent 
the  Inquisition,  they  came  as  near  to  it  as  the  rudeness  of  the 
age  and  the  looseness  of  their  tottering  political  organization 
would  permit,  by  endeavoring  to  create  through  the  priesthood 
a  network  of  supervision  which  should  attain  the  same  results. 
The  Inquisition  was  prefigured  and  anticipated. 

As  apparently  the  Jews  could  not  be  exterminated  or  the 
Conversos  be  trained  into  willing  Christians,  the  two  classes 
naturally  added  an  element  of  discontent  to  the  already  unquiet 
and  motley  population  consisting  of  superimposed  layers  of 
Goths,  Romans  and  Celtiberians.  The  Jews  doubtless  aided 
the  Gallo-Roman  rebellion  of  Flavins  Paulus  about  675,  for 
St.  Julian  of  Toledo,  in  describing  its  suppression  by  King 
Wamba,  denounces  Gaul  in  the  bitterest  terms,  ending  with 
the  crowning  reproach  that  it  is  a  refuge  for  the  blasphemy  of 
the  Jews,  whom  Wamba  banished  after  his  triumph.^  In  spite 
of  the  unremitting  efforts  for  their  destruction,  they  still  re- 
mained a  source  of  danger  to  the  State.  At  the  council  of  Toledo 
in  694,  King  Egiza  appealed  to  his  prelates  to  devise  some  means 
by  which  Judaism  should  be  wiped  out,  or  all  Jews  be  subjected 
to  the  sword  of  justice  and  their  property  be  appropriated,  for 
all  efforts  to  convert  them  had  proved  futile  and  there  was  danger 
that,  in  conjunction  with  their  brethren  in  other  lands,  they 
would  overthrow  Christianity.  In  its  response  the  council  alludes 
to  a  conspiracy  by  which  the  Jews  had  endeavored  to  occupy 
the  throne  and  bring  about  the  ruin  of  the  land,  and  it  decrees 
that  all  Jews,  with  their  wives,  children  and  posterity,  shall  be 
reduced  to  perpetual  servitude,  while  their  property  is  declared 
confiscated  to  the  king.  They  are  to  be  transferred  from  their 
present  abodes  and  be  given  to  such  persons  as  the  king  may 
designate,  who  shall  hold  them  as  slaves  so  long  as  they  per- 
severe in  their  faith,  taking  from  them  their  children  as  they 

»  S.  Juliani  Toleti  Vit.  Wambse,  n.  5,  28  (Florez,  Espana  Sagrada,  VI,  536,  556). 


44  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

reach  the  age  of  seven  and  marrying  them  only  to  Christians. 
Such  of  their  Christian  slaves  as  the  king  may  select  shall  receive 
a  portion  of  the  confiscated  property  and  continue  to  pay  the 
taxes  hitherto  levied  on  the  Jews/ 

Doubtless  this  inhuman  measure  led  to  indiscriminate  plunder 
and  infinite  misery,  but  its  object  was  not  accomplished.  The 
Jews  remained,  and  when  came  the  catastrophe  of  the  Saracen 
conquest  they  were  ready  enough  to  welcome  the  Berber  in- 
vaders. That  they  were  still  in  Spain  is  attributed  to  Witiza, 
who  reigned  from  700  to  710  and  who  is  said  to  have  recalled 
them  and  favored  them  with  privileges  greater  than  those  of 
the  Church,  but  Witiza,  though  a  favorite  target  for  the  abuse 
of  later  annaUsts,  was  an  excellent  prince  and  the  best  con- 
temporary authority  says  nothing  of  his  favoring  the  Jews.^ 

If  the  Jews  helped  the  Moslem,  as  we  may  readily  believe, 
both  from  the  probabilities  of  the  case  and  the  testimony  of 
Spanish  and  Arab  writers,'^  they  did  no  more  than  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  Christians.  To  the  mass  of  the  population  the  Goths 
were  merely  barbarous  masters,  whose  yoke  they  were  ready 
to  exchange  for  that  of  the  Moors,  nor  were  the  Goths  them- 
selves united.  If  we  are  to  believe  an  Arab  chronicler,  at  the 
decisive  battle  of  Xeres,  Don  Roderic  confided  his  right  and 
left  wings  to  kinsmen  of  Witiza,  who  were  secretly  conspiring 
against  him  and  whose  flight  caused  his  defeat.  The  land 
was  occupied  by  the  Moors  with  little  resistance,  and  on  terms 
easy  to  the  conquered.  It  is  true  that,  where  resistance  was 
made,  the  higher  classes  were  reduced  to  slavery,  the  lands 
were  divided  among  the  soldiery  and  one-fifth  was  reserved  to 
the  State,  on  which  peasants  were  settled  subject  to  an  impost 
of  one-third  of  the  product,  but  submission  was  general  under 
capitulations  which  secured  to  the  inhabitants  the  possession 
of  their  property,  subject  to  the  impost  of  a  third,  and  allowed 
them  the  enjoyment  of  their  laws  and  religion  under  native 
counts  and  bishops.     In  spite  of  this  liberality,  vast   numbers 


'  Concil.  Toletan.  XVII,  ann.  694,  cap.  8. 

*  Roderic.  Toletan.  de  Rebus  Hispan.  Lib.  iii,  cap.  xvi. — Morales,  Cor6nica 
General,  T.  VI,  p.  361.  Isidor  of  Beja,  however,  is  the  best  authority  for  the 
period,  and  he  speaks  of  Witiza  in  terms  of  high  praise  (Isidor.  Pacens.  Chron.  n. 
29,  30).  See  also  Dozy,  Recherches  sur  VHistoire  et  la  Litterature  de  I'Espagne,  I, 
16-17  (3*  Ed.  Leipzig.  1881). 

'  Rod.  Toletan.  op.  cit.  Lib.  ni,  cap.  xxii,  xxiii. — Dozy,  I,  49,  52. 


Chap.  II]  THE  MOZARABES  45 

embraced  Mohammedanism,  partly  to  avoid  taxation  and 
partly  through  conviction  that  the  marvellous  success  of  the 
Moslem  cause  was  a  proof  of  its  righteousness/ 

The  hardy  resolution  of  the  few  who  preferred  exile  and 
independence,  and  who  found  refuge  in  the  mountains  of  Galicia 
and  Asturias  preserved  the  Peninsula  from  total  subjection  to 
Islam.  During  the  long  struggle  of  the  Reconquest,  the  social 
and  religious  condition  of  Spain  was  strangely  anomalous,  pre- 
senting a  mixture  of  races  and  faiths  whose  relations,  however 
antagonistic  they  might  be  in  principle,  were,  for  the  most  part, 
dominated  by  temporal  interests  exclusively.  Mutual  attrition, 
so  far  from  inflaming  prejudices,  led  to  mutual  toleration,  so 
that  fanaticism  became  reduced  to  a  minimum  precisely  in  that 
corner  of  Christendom  where  a  'priori  reasoners  have  been 
tempted  to  regard  it  as  especially  violent. 

The  Saracens  long  maintained  the  policy  adopted  in  the  con- 
quest and  made  no  attempt  to  convert  their  Christian  subjects, 
just  as  in  the  Levantine  provinces  the  Christians,  although 
oppressed,  were  allowed  to  retain  their  rehgion,  and  in  Persia, 
after  the  fall  of  the  Sassanids,  Parsism  continued  to  exist  for 
centuries  and  only  died  out  gradually.^  In  fact,  the  condition 
of  the  Mozarabes,  or  subject  Christians,  under  the  cahphs  of 
Cordova  was,  for  the  most  part,  preferable  to  what  it  had  been 
under  the  Gothic  kings.  Mozarabes  were  frequently  in  com- 
mand of  the  Moslem  armies;  they  formed  the  royal  body-guard 
and  were  employed  as  secretaries  in  the  highest  offices  of  state. 
In  time  they  so  completely  lost  the  Latin  tongue  that  it  became 


»  Dozy,  I,  17,  44,  53,  54,  56,  72,  74-5,  79,  350-1. 

'  An  interesting  instance  of  Moslem  toleration  is  seen  in  the  Farfanes — Chris- 
tians of  Morocco  who  claimed  to  be  the  descendants  of  Goths  deported  at  the 
conquest  at  the  request  of  Count  Julian.  In  1386  they  sent  Sancho  Rodriguez, 
one  of  their  number,  to  Juan  I  to  ask  to  be  received  back  in  Spain.  Juan 
obtained  from  the  King  of  Morocco  permission  for  their  departure,  and  promised 
to  provide  for  them  lands  and  support.  In  1390  they  came,  numbering  fifty 
cavaliers  with  their  wives  and  children,  and  bringing  a  letter  from  the  Moslem 
ruler  speaking  of  them  as  nobles  descended  from  the  Goths  and  praising  greatly 
their  loyalty  and  valor.  It  was  in  riding  out  from  Burgos  to  welcome  them  that 
Juan's  horse  fell  and  caused  his  death.  In  1394  Henry  III  gave  them  a  confirma- 
tion of  their  ancient  nobihty,  and  in  1430  and  1433  we  still  find  them  recognized 
in  Seville  as  a  distinct  class. — Ayala,  Cron.  de  Juan  I,  ano  X,  cap.  xx. — Zuniga, 
Annales  de  Sevilla,  Lib.  viii,  ano  1386,  n.  2;  ano  1390,  n.  3;  Lib.  ix,  ano  1394, 
n.  1. — Archivo  de  Sevilla,  Seccion  primera,  Carpeta  clxxiv,  n.  4,  8. 


46  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOOES  [Book  I 

necessary  to  translate  the  scripture  and  the  canons  into  Arabic.^ 
The  Church  organization  was  maintained,  with  its  hierarchy 
of  prelates,  who  at  times  assembled  in  councils;  there  was  suffi- 
cient intellectual  activity  for  occasional  heresies  to  spring  up 
and  be  condemned,  like  those  of  Hostegesis  and  Migetio  in  the 
ninth  century,  while,  half  a  century  earlier,  the  bull  of  Adrian 
I,  addressed  to  the  orthodox  bishops  of  Spain  and  denouncing 
the  Adoptianism  of  Felix  of  Urgel,  which  was  upheld  by  Ehpan- 
dus,  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  shows  the  freedom  of  intercourse 
existing  between  the  Mozarabes  and  the  rest  of  Christendom.^ 
We  hear  of  S.  Eulogio  of  Cordova,  whose  two  brothers,  Alvar 
and  Isidor,  had  left  Spain  and  taken  service  with  the  Emperor 
Louis  le  Germanique;  he  set  out  in  850  to  join  them,  but  was 
stopped  at  Pampeluna  by  war  and  returned  by  way  of  Saragossa, 
bringing  with  him  a  number  of  books,  including  Virgil,  Horace, 
Juvenal,  Porphyry,  the  epigrams  of  Aldhelm  and  the  fables  of 
Avienus.^  Mixed  marriages  seem  not  to  have  been  uncommon 
and  there  were  frequent  instances  of  conversion  from  either 
faith,  but  Mozarabic  zealots  abused  the  Moslem  tolerance  by 
pubUcly  decrying  Islam  and  making  proselytes,  which  was 
forbidden,  and  a  sharp  persecution  arose  under  Abderrhaman  II 
and  Mahomet  I,  in  which  there  were  a  number  of  victims, 
including  San  Eulogio,  who  was  martyred  in  859.'' 

This  persecution  gave  rise  to  an  incident  which  illustrates 
the  friendly  intercourse  between  Christian  and  Saracen.  In 
858,  Hilduin,  Abbot  of  S.  Germain-des-Pres,  under  the  auspices 

^  Francisco  Femdndez  y  Gonzdlez,  Estado  de  los  Mud^jares  de  Castilla,  pp. 
14-18  (Madrid,  1866). — S.  Eulogii  Memorialis  Sanctorum  Lib.  ii,  cap.  xvi;  Lib. 
Ill,  cap.  i  (Migne's  Patrologia,  CXV,  787,  800). 

*  Florez,  Espana  Sagrada,  XI,  309  sqq.;  V,  Append,  x. — Samsonis  Abbatis 
Cordubensis  Apolog.  Lib.  n  (lb.  XI,  388  sqq.). — Alvari  Cordubens.  Epist.  vii, 
viii  (Ibid.  XI,  147  sqq.). — Hostegesis  was  Bishop  of  Mdlaga,  and  the  free  exercise 
of  discipline  in  the  Mozdrabic  church  is  shown  in  the  complaint  of  the  cruelty 
with  which  he  exacted  the  tercia  or  tribute  due  to  him,  causing  delinquents  to  be 
paraded  through  the  streets  with  soldiers  scourging  them  and  proclaiming  that  all 
defaulters  should  be  similarly  treated. — Florez,  XII,  326. 

3  S.  Eulogii  Epist.  iii  (Migne,  CXV,  845-9).— Alvari  Cordubens.  Vit.  S.  Eulogii 
(Ibid.  712). — The  description  by  Alvar  of  his  education  with  S.  Eulogio  shows 
that  the  Christian  schools  of  Cordova  were  flourishing  and  active  (Ibid.  cap.  i, 
p.  708). 

*  Alvari  Cordubens.  Vit.  S.  Eulogii,  cap.  iv,  v. — Eulogii  Memorialis  Sanctorum 
Lib.  II ;  Lib.  iii,  cap.  ii,  iii,  v,  viii,  xvii. — Ejusd.  Vit.  et  Passio  SS.  Florae  et 
Mariae. — Ejusd.  Lib.  Apologet.  Martyrum. 


Chap.  II]  THE  MOZABABES  47 

of  Charles  le  Chauve,  sent  two  monks  to  Spain  to  procure  the 
reHcs  of  St.  Vincent.  On  reaching  Languedoc  they  learned 
that  his  body  had  been  carried  to  Benevento,  but  they  also 
heard  of  the  persecution  at  Cordova  and  were  delighted,  know- 
ing that  there  must  be  plenty  of  relics  to  be  obtained.  They 
therefore  kept  on  to  Barcelona,  where  Sunifred,  the  next  in 
command  to  the  count,  commended  them  to  Abdulivar,  Prince 
of  Saragossa,  with  whom  he  had  intimate  relations.  From 
Saragossa  they  reached  Cordova,  where  the  Mozarabic  Bishop 
Saul  received  them  kindly  and  assisted  them  in  obtaining  the 
bodies  of  St.  George  and  St.  Aurehus,  except  that,  as  the  head 
of  the  latter  was  lacking,  that  of  St.  Natalia  was  substituted. 
With  these  precious  spoils  they  returned  in  safety  to  Paris,  by 
way  of  Toledo,  Alcala,  Saragossa  and  Barcelona,  to  the  immense 
gratification,  we  are  told,  of  King  Charles.^  The  persecution  was 
but  temporary  and,  a  century  later,  in  956,  we  hear  of  Abder- 
rhaman  III  sending  Recemund,  Bishop  of  Elvira  (Granada),  as 
his  ambassador  to  Otho  the  Great  at  Frankfort,  where  he  per- 
suaded Liutprand  of  Cremona  to  write  one  of  his  historical 
works.^  When  the  Cid  conquered  Valencia,  in  1096,  one  of 
the  conditions  of  surrender  was  that  the  garrison  should  be 
composed  of  Mozarabes,  and  the  capitulation  was  signed  by 
the  principal  Christian  as  well  as  Moslem  citizens.^ 

The  number  of  the  Mozarabes  of  course  diminished  rapidly 
in  the  progress  of  reconquest  as  the  Christian  territories  ex- 
panded from  Gahcia  to  Leon  and  Castile.  Early  in  the  twelfth 
century  Alfonso  VI,  in  reducing  to  order  his  extensive  acquisi- 
tions, experienced  much  trouble  with  them;  they  are  described 
as  being  worse  than  Moors,  and  he  settled  the  matter  by  the 
decisive  expedient  of  deporting  multitudes  of  them  to  Africa.* 
The  rapid  progress  of  his  arms,  however,  had  so  alarmed  the 
petty  kings  among  whom  Andalusia  was  divided  that  they  had, 
about  1090,  invited  to  their  assistance  the  Berbers  known  as 
Almoravides,  who  drove  back  Alfonso  on  the  bloody  field  of 
Zalaca.  Their  leader,  Jusuf  ibn  Techufin,  was  not  content  to 
fight  for  the  benefit  of  his  alhes;  he  speedily  overthrew  their 

1  Aimoini  Translatio  SS.  Georgii,  Aurelii  et  Nathalise,  Lib.  i;  Lib.  ii,  cap. 
xxviii. 

'  Liutprandi  Antopodosis,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  i. 
'  Dozy,  Recherches,  II,  178. 
*  Femdndez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  57. 


48  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

feeble  dynasties  and  established  himself  as  supreme  in  Moslem 
Spain.  The  Almoravides  were  savage  and  fanatical;  they  could 
not  endure  the  sight  of  Christians  enjoying  freedom  of  worship, 
and  bitter  persecution  speedily  followed,  until,  in  1125,  the 
Mozarabes  invited  the  aid  of  Alfonso  el  Batallador.  They  sent 
a  roll  of  their  best  warriors,  comprising  twelve  thousand  names, 
and  promised  that  these  and  many  more  would  join  him.  He 
came  and  spent  fifteen  months  on  Moorish  territory,  but  made 
no  permanent  conquests,  and  on  his  departure  the  wretched 
Christians  begged  him  to  let  them  accompany  him  to  escape 
the  wrath  of  the  Almoravides.  Ten  thousand  of  them  did  so, 
while  of  those  who  remained  large  numbers  were  deported  to 
Africa,  where  they  mostly  perished.^  The  miserable  remnant 
had  a  breathing  spell,  for  the  atmosphere  of  Spain  seemed  un- 
propitious  to  fanaticism  and  the  ferocity  of  the  Berbers  speedily 
softened.  We  soon  find  them  fraternizing  with  Christians.  King 
Ali  of  Cordova  treated  the  latter  well  and  even  entrusted  to  a 
captive  noble  of  Barcelona  named  Reverter  the  command  of 
his  armies.  His  son  Techufin  followed  his  example  and  was 
regarded  as  the  especial  friend  of  the  Christians,  who  aided  him 
in  his  African  wars.^  Yet  this  interval  of  rest  was  short.  In 
1146,  another  Berber  horde,  known  as  Almohades,  overthrew 
the  Almoravides  and  brought  a  fresh  accession  of  savage  ferocity 
from  the  African  deserts.  Their  caliph,  Abd-al-nmmin,  pro- 
claimed that  he  would  suffer  none  but  true  believers  in  his 
dominions;  the  alternatives  offered  were  death,  conversion  or 
expatriation.  Many  underwent  pretended  conversion,  others 
went  into  voluntary  exile,  and  others  were  deported  to  Africa, 
after  which  the  Mozarabes  disappear  from  view.^ 

Yet  it  was  as  impossible  for  the  Almohades  to  retain  their 
fanaticism  as  it  had  proved  for  their  predecessors.  When,  in 
1228,  on  the  deposition  of  the  Almohad  Miramamolin  Al-Abdel, 
his  nephew  Yahia  was  raised  to  the  throne,  his  brother  Al- 
Memon-Abo-1-Ola,  who  was  in  Spain,  claimed  the  succession. 
To  obtain  the  assistance  of  San  Fernando  III,  who   lent  him 


1  Dozy,  Recherches,  I,  265,  269,  349,  352-61.— Orderici  Vital.  Hist.  Eccles. 
P.  Ill,  Lib.  xiii,  cap.  2. 

^  Cronica  de  Alfonso  VII,  cap.  46,  101  (Espana  Sagrada,  XXI,  360,  398). 

'  Dozy,  Recherches,  I,  370-1. — FernAndez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  19. — See  also  an 
essay  on  the  Mozdrabes  of  Valencia  by  Don  Roque  Chabds,  in  the  Boletin  de  la 
Real  Academia  de  la  Historia,  XVIII,  19. 


Chap.  II]  THE  MULADtES  49 

twelve  thousand  Christian  troops,  he  agreed  to  surrender  ten 
frontier  strongholds,  to  permit  the  erection  of  a  Christian 
church  in  Morocco,  where  the  Christians  should  celebrate  pub- 
licly with  ringing  of  bells,  and  to  allow  freedom  of  conversion 
from  Islam  to  Christianity,  with  prohibition  of  the  converse. 
This  led  to  the  foundation  of  an  episcopate  of  Morocco,  of  which 
the  first  bishop  was  Fray  Aguelo,  succeeded  by  Fra}''  Lope, 
both  Franciscans.^  Co-operation  of  this  kind  with  the  Christians 
meets  us  at  every  step  in  the  annals  of  the  Spanish  Saracens. 
Aben-al-Ahmar,  who  founded  the  last  dynasty  of  Granada, 
agreed  to  become  a  vassal  of  San  Fernando  III,  to  pay  him  a 
tribute  of  150,000  doblas  per  annum,  to  furnish  a  certain  num- 
ber of  troops  whenever  called  upon,  and  to  appear  in  the  Cortes 
when  summoned,  like  any  other  ricohome.  He  aided  Fernando 
greatly  in  the  capture  of  Seville,  and,  in  the  solemnities  which 
followed  the  entry  into  the  city,  Fernando  bestowed  knighthood 
on  him  and  granted  him  the  bearing  of  the  Castilian  guidon — 
gules,  a  band  or,  with  two  serpents,  and  two  crowned  lions  as 
supporters — a  cognizance  still  to  be  seen  in  the  Alhambra.^ 

The  Muladies,  or  Christian  converts  to  Islam,  formed  another 
important  portion  of  the  Moorish  community.  At  the  con- 
quest, as  we  have  seen,  large  numbers  of  Christians  aposta- 
tized, slaves  to  obtain  freedom  and  freemen  to  escape  taxation. 
They  were  looked  upon,  however,  with  suspicion  by  Arabs  and 
Berbers  and  were  subjected  to  disabilities  which  led  to  frequent 
rebellions  and  murderous  reprisals.  On  the  suppression  of  a  rising 
in  Cordova,  in  814,  fifteen  thousand  of  them  emigrated  to  Egypt, 
where  they  captured  Alexandria  and  held  it  until  826,  when  they 
were  forced  to  capitulate  and  transferred  their  arms  to  Candia, 
founding  a  dynasty  which  lasted  for  a  century  and  a  half.  Eight 
thousand  of  them  established  themselves  in  Fez,  where  they  held 
their  own  and  even  in  the  fourteenth  century  were  distinguish- 
able from  the  other  Moslems.  In  Toledo,  after  several  unsuc- 
cessful rebellions,  the  Muladies  became  dominant  in  853  and 
remained  independent  for  eighty  years.    Together  with  the  Moza- 


'  Femdndez  y  Gonzdiez,  pp.  86-7,  93.  The  term  Miramamolin,  so  often  used 
by  Christian  writers  as  a  personal  name,  is  Amir-el-M omenin,  or  Prince  of  the 
Faithful,  a  title  frequently  assumed  by  Moorish  rulers. 

'  Ferndndez  y  Gonzdlez,  pp.  92,  96. 

4 


50  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

rabes  they  almost  succeeded  in  founding  a  kingdom  of  their  own 
in  the  mountains  of  Ronda,  under  Omar  ben  Hafsun,  who  em- 
braced Christianity.  Indeed,  the  facihty  of  conversion  from 
one  faith  to  another  was  a  marked  feature  of  the  period  and 
shows  how  Httle  firmness  of  rehgious  conviction  existed.  The 
renegade,  Ibn  Meruan,  who  founded  an  independent  state  in 
Merida,  taught  a  mixed  faith  compounded  of  both  the  great 
rehgions.  Everywhere  the  Muladies  were  striving  for  freedom 
and  estabUshing  petty  principahties — in  Algarbe,  in  Priego,  in 
Murcia,  and  especially  in  Aragon,  where  the  Gothic  family  of 
the  Beni-Cassi  became  supreme.  After  the  reduction  of  Toledo 
by  starvation,  in  930,  they  become  less  prominent  and  gradu- 
ally merge  into  the  Moslem  population.^  This  was  assisted  by 
the  fact  that  they  made  common  cause  with  their  conquerors 
against  the  fanatic  Almoravides  and  Almohades.  The  leader 
of  the  Andalusians  against  the  latter  was  a  man  of  Christian 
descent,  Ibn-Mardanich,  King  of  Valencia  and  Murcia.  He 
wore  Christian  dress  and  arms,  his  language  was  Castihan  and 
his  troops  were  mostly  Castilians,  Navarrese  and  Catalans.  To 
the  Christians  he  was  commonly  known  as  the  king  Don  Lope. 
Religious  differences,  in  fact,  were  of  much  less  importance 
than  political  aims,  and  everywhere,  as  we  shall  see,  Christian 
and  Moslem  were  intermingled  in  the  interminable  civil  broils 
of  that  tumultuous  time.  In  an  attempt  on  Granada,  in  1162, 
the  principal  captains  of  Ibn-Mardanich  were  two  sons  of  the 
Count  of  Urgel  and  a  grandson  of  Alvar  Fafiez,  the  favorite 
lieutenant  of  the  Cid.^ 

In  these  alternations  of  religious  indifference  and  fanaticism, 
the  position  of  the  Jews  under  Moslem  domination  was  neces- 
sarily exposed  to  severe  vicissitudes.  Their  skill  as  physicians 
and  their  unrivalled  talent  in  administration  rendered  them 
a  necessity  to  the  conquerors,  whose  favor  they  had  gained  by 
the  assistance  rendered  in  the  invasion,  but  ever  and  anon  there 
would  come  a  burst  of  intolerance  which  swept  them  into  obscu- 
rity if  not  into  massacre.  When  Mahomet  I  ascended  the  throne 
of  Cordova,  about  850,  we  are  told  that  one  of  his  first  acts 
was  the  dismissal  of  all  Jewish  officials,  including  presumably 


^  Men^ndez  y  Pelayo,  Heterodoxos  Espafioles,  I,  640-5. 
*  Dozy,  Recherches,  I,  365-7,  372-9. 


Chap.  II]  THE  JEWS  UNDER  THE  SABACENS  51 

R.  Hasdai  ben  Ishak,  who  had  been  physician  and  vizier  to  his 
father,  Abderrhaman  11/  A  century  later  their  wealth  was  so 
great  that  when  the  Jew  PeHag  went  to  the  country  palace  of 
Alhakem,  the  CaUph  of  Cordova,  it  is  related  that  he  was  accom- 
panied by  a  retinue  of  seven  hundred  retainers  of  his  race,  all 
richly  clad  and  riding  in  carriages.^  How  insecure  was  their 
prosperity  was  proved,  in  1066,  when  Samuel  ha  Levi  and  his 
son  Joseph  had  been  viziers  and  virtual  rulers  of  Granada  for 
fifty  years.  The  latter  chanced  to  exile  Abu  Ishac  of  Elvira,  a 
noted  theologian  and  poet,  who  took  revenge  in  a  bitter  satire 
which  had  immense  popular  success.  "The  Jews  reign  in  Gran- 
ada; they  have  divided  between  them  the  city  and  the  provinces, 
and  everywhere  one  of  this  accursed  race  is  in  supreme  power. 
They  collect  the  taxes,  they  dress  magnificently  and  fare  sump- 
tuously, while  the  true  behevers  are  in  rags  and  wretchedness. 
The  chief  of  these  asses  is  a  fatted  ram.  Slay  him  and  his  kin- 
dred and  alhes  and  seize  their  immense  treasures.  They  have 
broken  the  compact  between  us  and  are  subject  to  punishment 
as  perjurers."  We  shall  see  hereafter  how  ready  was  the  Chris- 
tian mob  to  respond  to  such  appeals;  the  Moslem  was  no  better; 
a  rising  took  place  in  which  Joseph  was  assassinated  in  the  royal 
palace,  while  four  thousand  Jews  were  massacred  and  their 
property  pillaged.'  Again  they  recuperated  themselves,  but 
they  suffered  with  the  Christians  under  the  fierce  fanaticism 
of  the  Almohades.  Indeed,  they  were  exposed  to  a  fiercer  out- 
burst of  wrath,  for  the  robbery  of  the  jewels  of  the  Kaaba, 
which  occurred  about  1160,  was  attributed  to  Spanish  Jews, 
and  Abd-el-mumin  was  unsparing  in  enforcing  his  orders  of 
conversion.  Numbers  were  put  to  death  and  forty-eight  syna- 
gogues were  burnt.  The  Sephardim,  or  Spanish  Jews,  lost  their 
most  conspicuous  doctor  when,  in  this  persecution,  Maimonides 
fled  to  Egypt.^  Still  they  continued  to  exist  and  to  prosper, 
though  exposed  to  destruction  at  any  moment  through  the 
whims  of  the  monarch  or  the  passions  of  the  people.  Thus,  in 
1375,  in  Granada,  two  men  obstructed  a  street  in  a  violent 
altercation  and  were  vainly  adjured  to  cease  in  the  name  of 


*  S.  Eulogii  Memorialis  Sanctorum  Lib.  in,  cap.  iv. — Lindo's  History  of  the 
Jews  of  Spain,  p.  44  (London,  1848). 

*  Lindo,  p.  46. 

3  Dozy,  Recherches,  I,  285-9. 

*  Lindo,  p.  62. 


52  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

Mahomet,  when  Isaac  Amoni,  the  royal  physician,  who  chanced 
to  pass  in  his  carriage,  repeated  the  order  and  was  obeyed. 
That  a  Jew  should  possess  more  influence  than  the  name  of 
the  Prophet  was  unendurable;  the  people  rose  and  a  massacre 
ensued/ 

While  Saracen  Spain  was  thus  a  confused  medley  of  races  and 
faiths,  subject  to  no  guiding  principle  and  swayed  by  the  policy 
or  the  prejudices  of  the  moment,  the  Christian  kingdoms  were 
much  the  same,  except  that,  during  the  early  Middle  Ages,  out- 
bursts of  fanaticism  were  lacking.  Brave  warriors  learned  to 
respect  each  other,  and,  as  usual,  it  was  the  non-combatants. 
Christian  priests  and  Moslem  faquis,  who  retained  their  viru- 
lence. In  the  fierce  struggles  of  the  Reconquest  there  is  little 
trace  of  race  or  religious  hatred.  The  early  ballads  show  the 
Moors  regarded  as  gallant  antagonists,  against  whom  there  was 
no  greater  animosity  than  was  aroused  in  the  civil  strife  which 
fiUed  the  intervals  of  Moorish  warfare.^  When,  in  1149,  Ramon 
Berenger  IV  of  Barcelona,  after  a  laborious  siege,  captured  the 
long-coveted  town  of  Lerida,  the  terms  of  surrender  assumed 
the  form  of  a  peaceful  agreement  by  which  the  Moorish  Alcaide 
Avifelet  became  the  vassal  of  Ramon  Berenger  and  they  mutually 
pledged  each  other  fidelity.  Avifelet  gave  up  all  his  castles,  re- 
tained certain  rights  in  the  territory  and  Ramon  Berenger  prom- 
ised him  fiefs  in  Barcelona  and  Gerona.^  More  than  this,  the 
ceaseless  civil  wars  on  both  sides  of  the  boundary  caused  each  to 
have  constant  recourse  to  those  of  hostile  faith  for  aid  or  shelter, 
and  the  relations  which  grew  up,  although  transitory  and  shifting. 


*  Lindo,  pp.  156-7. 

^  In  the  ballads  the  Moors  are  almost  always  represented  as  chivalric  enemies. 
Even  when  celebrating  their  defeats,  down  to  the  capture  of  Granada,  there  is  no 
contempt  manifested  and  nowhere  is  to  be  seen  a  trace  of  religious  acerbity. 
Many  ballads  have  Moors  as  their  heroes,  as  in  those  which  celebrate  the  deeds 
of  Bravonel  and  Reduan,  and  there  is  nothing  to  distinguish  their  treatment  from 
that  of  Christians.  Bravonel  and  Bernardo  del  Carpio  are  represented  as  com- 
panions in  arms.  When  Bernardo  is  banished  by  his  king  he  betakes  himself 
forthwith  to  Granada  to  participate  in  a  tournament,  where 

Que  hay  unas  Reales  fiestas,  Al  que  mejor  lo  ficiere 

Donde  el  premio  serd,  dado  Sea  Moro  6  sea  Cristiano; 

and  there  he  is  warmly  welcomed  by  Muza,  the  most  gallant  knight  of  the  Sara- 
cens.— Romances  Antiguos  Espanoles,  I,  6.5  (Leipzig,  1844). 

^  Villanueva,  Viage  Literario,  XVI,  159. 


Chap.  II]  SPANIARDS  AND  MOORS  53 

became  so  intricate  that  little  difference  between  Christian  and 
Moor  could  often  be  recognized  by  statesmen.  Thus  mutual  tol- 
eration could  not  fail  to  estabhsh  itself,  to  the  scandal  of  crusaders, 
who  came  to  help  the  one  side,  and  of  the  hordes  of  fresh  fanatics 
who  poured  over  from  Africa  to  assist  the  other. 

This  constant  interminghng  of  Spaniard  and  Moor  meets  us  at 
every  step  in  Spanish  history.  Perhaps  it  would  be  too  much  to 
say,  with  Dozy,  that  "a.  Spanish  knight  of  the  Middle  Ages 
fought  neither  for  his  country  nor  for  his  religion;  he  fought,  hke 
the  Cid,  to  get  something  to  eat,  whether  under  a  Christian  or  a 
Mussulman  prince"  and"  the  Cid  himself  was  rather  a  Mussulman 
than  a  Catholic,"^  though  Philip  II  endeavored  to  have  him 
canonized — but  there  can  be  no  question  that  religious  zeal  had 
little  to  do  with  the  Reconquest,  In  the  adventurous  career  of  the 
Cid,  Christians  and  Moslems  are  seen  mingled  in  both  contending 
armies,  and  it  is  for  the  most  part  impossible  to  detect  in  the 
struggle  any  interest  either  of  race  or  religion.^  This  had  long 
been  customary.  Towards  the  end  of  the  ninth  century,  Bermudo, 
brother  of  Alfonso  III,  for  seven  years  held  Astorga  with  the  aid 
of  the  Moors,  to  whom  he  fled  for  refuge  when  finally  dislodged. 
About  940  we  find  a  King  Aboiahia,  a  vassal  of  Abderrhaman  of 
Cordova,  transferring  allegiance  to  Ramiro  II  and  then  returning 
to  his  former  lord,  and  some  fifteen  years  later,  when  Sancho  I 
was  ejected  by  a  conspiracy,  he  took  refuge  with  Abderrhaman, 
by  whose  aid  he  regained  his  kingdom,  the  usurper  Ordofio,  in 
turn  flying  to  Cordova,  where  he  was  hospitably  received.^ 
About  990  Bermudo  II  gave  his  sister  to  wife  to  the  Moorish 
King  of  Toledo,  resulting  in  an  unexpected  miracle.  In  the  ter- 
rible invasion  of  Almanzor,  in  997,  which  threatened  destruction 
to  the  Christians,  we  are  told  that  he  was  accompanied  by 
numerous  exiled  Christian  nobles.  Alfonso  VI  of  Castile,  when 
overcome  by  his  brother,  Sancho  II,  sought  asylum,  until  the 
death  of  the  latter,  in  Toledo— a  hospitality  which  he  subse- 
quently repaid  by  conquering  the  city  and  kingdom.*  His  court 
was  semi-oriental;  during  his  exile  he  had  become  famiUar  with 


'  Dozy,  Recherches,  II,  203,  233. 

2  Dozy,  II,  109,  111.— Edelestand  du  Meril,  Poesies  populaires  Latines,  pp. 
312-13. 

5  Chron.  Sampiri  Asturicens,  n.  3,  22,  26  (Espafia  Sagrada,  XIV,  439,  452, 
455). 

*  Chron.  Pelagii  Ovietens.  (Espafia  Sagrada,  XIV,  468,  472). 


54  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

Arabic;  in  his  prosperity  he  gathered  around  him  Saracen  poets 
and  sages,  and  among  his  numerous  successive  wives  was  Zaida, 
daughter  of  Al-Mutamid,  King  of  Seville.  His  contemporary, 
Sancho  I  of  Aragon,  was  equally  given  to  Moslem  culture  and 
habitually  signed  his  name  with  Arabic  characters.^ 

The  co-operation  of  Christian  and  Moor  continued  to  the  last. 
In  1270,  when  Alfonso  X  had  rendered  himself  unpopular  by 
releasing  Portugal  from  vassalage  to  Leon,  his  brother,  the 
Infante  Felipe  and  a  number  of  the  more  powerful  ricosomes  con- 
spired against  him.  Their  first  thought  was  to  obtain  an  alliance 
with  Abu  Jusuf,  King  of  Morocco,  who  gladly  promised  them 
assistance.  The  prelates  of  Castile  fanned  the  flame,  hoping  in 
the  confusion  to  gain  enlarged  privileges.  Felipe  and  his  con- 
federates renounced  allegiance  to  Alfonso,  in  accordance  with  the 
fuero,  and  betook  themselves  to  Granada,  committing  frightful 
devastations  by  the  way.  Everything  promised  a  disastrous 
war  with  the  Moors  of  both  sides  of  the  straits,  when,  through  the 
intervention  of  Queen  Violante,  concessions  were  made  to  the 
rebeUious  nobles  and  peace  was  restored.^  So  when,  in  1282, 
Sancho  IV  revolted  against  his  father  and  was  supported  by  all 
the  cities  except  Seville  and  by  all  the  ricosomes  save  the  Master 
of  Calatrava,  and  was  recognized  by  the  Kings  of  Granada,  Por- 
tugal, Aragon  and  Navarre,  Alfonso  X  in  his  destitution  sent  his 
crown  to  Abu  Jusuf  and  asked  for  a  loan  on  it  as  a  pledge.  The 
chivalrous  Moslem  at  once  sent  him  60,000  doblas  and  followed 
this  by  coming  with  a  large  force  of  horse  and  foot,  whereupon 
Sancho  entered  into  alliance  with  Granada  and  a  war  ensued  with 
Christians  and  Moors  on  both  sides,  till  the  death  of  Alfonso 
settled  the  question  of  the  succession.^  In  1324,  Don  Juan 
Manuel  was  Adelantado  de  la  Frontera;  conceiving  some  cause 
of  quarrel  with  his  cousin,  Alfonso  XI,  he  at  once  entered  into  an 
alHance  with  Granada,  then  at  war  with  Castile,  and  in  1333  his 
turbulence  rendered  Alfonso  unable  to  prevent  the  capture  of 
Gibraltar  or  to  recover  it  when  he  made  the  attempt.*  Pedro  the 
Cruel,  in  1366  and  again  in  1368,  had  Moorish  troops  to  aid  him 
in  his  struggles  with  Henry  of  Trastamara.     In  the  latter  year 

1  Femdndez  y  Gonzdlez,  pp.  34,  48,  114. 
'  Cronica  de  Don  Alfonso  X,  cap.  xix-lviii. 

'  Ibidem  cap.  Ixxvi. — Barrantes,  Ilustraciones,  Lib.  i,  cap.  vi,  xi  (Memorial 
hist,  espanol,  IX,  72-9,  92-8). 

*  Cronica  de  Don  Alfonso  XI,  cap.  Ivii,  cxi,  cxxv. 


Chap.  II]  ALLIANCES  WITH  MOORS  55 

the  King  of  Granada  came  to  his  aid  with  a  force  of  87,000  men, 
and,  in  the  final  battle  at  Montiel,  Pedro  had  1500  Moorish  horse- 
men in  his  army/  One  of  the  complaints  formulated  against 
Henry  IV,  in  1464,  was  that  he  was  accompanied  by  a  force  of 
Moors  who  committed  outrages  upon  Christians.^ 

It  was  the  same  in  Aragon.  No  knight  of  the  cross  earned  a 
more  brilliant  reputation  for  exploits  against  the  infidel  than 
Jaime  I,  who  acquired  by  them  his  title  of  el  Conquistador,  yet 
when,  in  1260,  he  gave  his  nobles  permission  to  serve  in  a  crusade 
under  Alfonso  X,  he  excepted  the  King  of  Tunis,  and  on  Alfonso's 
remonstrating  with  him  he  explained  that  this  was  because  of 
the  love  which  the  King  of  Tunis  bore  him  and  of  the  truce  exist- 
ing between  them  and  of  the  number  of  his  subjects  who  were  in 
Tunis  with  much  property,  all  of  whom  would  be  imperilled.^ 
On  the  accession  of  Jaime  II,  in  1291,  envoys  came  to  him  from 
the  Kings  of  Granada  and  Tremecen  to  renew  the  treaties  had 
with  Alfonso  III.  To  the  latter  Jaime  replied,  promising  freedom 
of  trade,  demanding  the  annual  tribute  of  2000  doblas  which  had 
been  customary  and  asking  for  the  next  summer  a  hundred  light 
horse  paid  for  three  months,  to  aid  him  against  his  Christian 
enemies.*  As  late  as  1405,  the  treaty  between  Martin  of  Aragon 
and  his  son  Martin  of  Sicily  on  the  one  hand  and  Mahomet,  King 
of  Granada,  on  the  other,  not  only  guarantees  free  intercourse  and 
safety  to  the  subjects  of  each  and  open  trade  in  all  ports  and 
towns  of  their  respective  dominions,  but  each  party  agrees,  when 
called  upon,  to  assist  the  other,  except  against  allies— Aragon  and 
Sicily  with  four  or  five  galleys  well  armed  and  manned  and 
Granada  with  four  or  five  hundred  cavalry.^ 

All  these  alliances  and  treaties  for  freedom  of  trade  and  inter- 
course were  in  direct  antagonism  to  the  decrees  of  the  Church, 
which  in  its  councils  ordered  priests  every  Sunday  to  denounce 
as  excomnmnicate,  or  even  hable  to  be  reduced  to  slavery,  all  who 
should  sell  to  Moors  iron,  weapons,  timber,  fittings  for  ships, 
bread,  wine,  animals  to  eat,  ride  or  till  the  ground,  or  who  should 
serve  in  their  ships  as  pilots  or  in  their  armies  in  war  upon  Chris- 

1  Ayala,  Cronica  de  Don  Pedro  I,  afio  xvii,  cap.  iv;  ano  xix,  cap.  iv,  v;  ano 
XX,  cap.  vi. 

*  Barrantes,  Ilustraciones,  Lib.  vii,  cap.  xxii. 
'  Memorial  historico  espanol,  I,   159. 

*  Ibidem  III,  151. 

^  Coleccion  de  Documeatos  ineditos  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  I,  25. 


56  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

tians.^  It  was  in  vain  that  Gregory  XI,  in  1372,  ordered  all 
fautors  and  receivers  of  Saracens  to  be  prosecuted  as  heretics  by 
the  Inquisition,  and  equally  vain  was  the  deduction  drawn  by 
Eymerich  from  this,  that  any  one  who  lent  aid  or  counsel  or  favor 
to  the  Moors  was  a  fautor  of  heresy,  to  be  punished  as  such  by 
the  Holy  Office."  In  spite  of  the  thunders  of  the  Church  the 
traders  continued  trading  and  the  princes  made  offensive  and 
defensive  alliances  with  the  infidel. 

Nor,  with  the  illustrious  example  of  the  Cid  before  them,  had 
Christian  nobles  the  slightest  hesitation  to  aid  the  Moors  by 
taking  service  with  them.  When,  in  1279,  Alonso  Perez  de 
Guzman,  the  founder  of  the  great  house  of  Medina  Sidonia,  was 
insulted  in  the  court  of  Alfonso,  he  promptly  renounced  his 
allegiance,  converted  all  his  property  into  money,  and  raised  a 
troop  with  which  he  entered  the  service  of  Abu  Jusuf  of  Morocco. 
There  he  remained  for  eleven  years,  except  a  visit  to  Seville  to 
marry  Dona  Maria  Coronel,  whom  he  carried  back  to  Morocco. 
He  was  made  captain  of  all  the  Christian  troops  in  Abu  Jusuf's 
employ  and  aided  largely  in  the  war  which  transferred  the  sov- 
ereignty of  that  portion  of  Africa  from  the  Almohades  to  the 
Beni  Marin.  He  accumulated  immense  wealth,  which  by  a 
stratagem  he  transferred  to  Spain,  where  it  purchased  the  estates 
on  which  the  greatness  of  the  house  was  based.  The  family 
historiographer,  writing   in  1541,  feels  obhged   to  explain   this 


^  Concil.  Lateran.  IV,  ann.  1216  ad  calcem  (Harduin.  VII,  75). — Cap.  6,  17, 
Extra,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  vi. — Concil.  Lugdunens.  I,  ann.  1245,  cap.  xvii  (Harduin.  VIII, 
394).— Concil.  Ilerdens.  ann.  1246  (Aguirre,  VI,  318). — Concil.  Vallisolet.  ann. 
1322,  cap.  xxii  (Aguirre,  V,  251). — Cap.  1  Extrav.  Commun.  Lib.  v,  Tit.  ii. — 
Urbani  PP.  V,  Bull.  Apostolatus,  1364  (Bullar.  Roman.  Ed.  Luxemburg.  I, 
261).— Nicholai  PP.  V,  Bull.  Olim,  1450  (Ibid.  I,  361),  and  finally  in  the  standard 
anathema  of  the  bull  in  Caena  Domini. 

Considering  the  character  of  the  Roman  curia  in  the  Middle  Ages  it  would 
scarce  be  malicious  to  suggest  that  the  chief  object  of  these  prohibitions  was  to 
create  a  market  for  licenses  to  violate  them,  and  St.  Antonino  of  Florence,  about 
the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  tells  us  that  as  a  rule  the  Venetian  merchants 
had  them  (S.  Antonini  Confessionale) 

In  spite  of  his  laxity  in  practice,  Alfonso  X  in  the  Partidas  embodies  the 
Lateran  decree  denouncing  slavery  for  all  who  aid  the  Saracens  in  any  manner 
(Partidas,  P.  iv.  Tit.  xxi,  ley  4)  and  in  1253  he  admitted  papal  control  in  such 
matters  by  obtaining  in  advance  from  Innocent  IV  ratification  of  certain  treaties 
which  he  was  negotiating  with  the  princes  of  Africa  (Fernandez  y  Gonzalez, 
p.  337). 

2  Bullar.  Roman.  I,  263.— Eymerici  Direct.  Inquisit.  p.  351  (Ed.  Venet.  1607). 


Chap.  II]  THE  MUD:^JARES  57 

readiness  to  serve  the  infidel,  so  abhorrent  to  the  convictions  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  He  tells  us  that  at  that  period  the  Moors, 
both  of  Granada  and  Africa,  were  unwarlike  and  were  accustomed 
to  rely  upon  Christian  troops,  and  that  princes,  nobles  and  knights 
were  constantly  in  their  service.  Henry,  brother  of  Alfonso  X, 
served  the  King  of  Tunis  four  years  and  amassed  large  wealth; 
Garci  Martinez  de  Gallegos  was  already  in  the  service  of  Abu 
Jusuf  when  Guzman  went  there;  Gonzalo  de  Aguilar  became  a 
vassal  of  the  King  of  Granada  and  fought  for  him.  In  1352, 
when  Pedro  the  Cruel  began  to  reduce  his  turbulent  nobles  to 
order,  Don  Juan  de  la  Cerda,  a  prince  of  the  blood,  went  to 
Morocco  for  assistance  and,  failing  to  obtain  it,  remained  there 
and  won  great  renown  by  his  knightly  deeds  till  he  was  reconciled 
to  Pedro  and  returned  to  Castile.  Examples  might  be  multipHed, 
but  these  will  suffice  to  indicate  how  few  scruples  of  rehgion 
existed  among  the  Spaniards  of  the  Middle  Ages.  As  Barrantes 
says,  adventurous  spirits  in  those  days  took  service  with  the 
Moors  as  in  his  time  they  sought  their  fortunes  in  the  Indies.^ 

It  is  thus  easy  to  understand  how,  in  the  progress  of  the  Recon- 
quest,  the  Moors  of  the  territory  acquired  were  treated  with  even 
greater  forbearance  than  the  Christians  had  been  when  Spain  was 
first  overrun.  When  raids  were  made  or  cities  were  captured  by 
force,  there  was  no  hesitation  in  putting  the  inhabitants  to  the 
sword  or  in  carrying  them  off  into  slavery,^  but  when  capitula- 
tions were  made  or  provinces  submitted,  the  people  were  allowed 
to  remain,  retaining  their  religion  and  property,  and  becoming 
known  under  name  of  Mudejares. 

The  enslaved  Moor  was  his  master's  property,  like  his  cattle,  but 
entitled  to  some  safeguards  of  life  and  limb.  Even  baptism  did 
not  manumit  him  unless  the  owner  were  a  Moor  or  a  Jew.^   That 


*  Barrantes,  Ilustraciones,  etc.,  Lib.  i,  cap.  iv,  xiii,  xiv,  xx,  xxi. — Ayala,  Cronica 
de  Don  Pedro  I,  ano  III,  cap.  iii. 

^  Chron.  Sampiri  Asturicens.  n.  16,  24,  25  (Espana  Sagrada,  XIV,  447,  454, 
455). — Marca  Hispanica,  p.  1232. 

^  Partidas,  P.  iv,  Tit.  xxi,  leyes  6,  8;  Tit.  xxii,  ley  3.  In  the  Fuero  Real 
de  Espana  the  only  allusion  to  Moors  is  as  slaves  (Lib.  iv.  Tit.  xi,  ley  3;  Tit. 
xiv,  ley  1).  It  is  virtually  the  same  in  the  old  Fuero  of  Madrid  (Memorias  de 
la  R.  Acad,  de  la  Historia,  VIII,  40). 

The  Church  held  that  baptism  manumitted  the  slave,  even  when  the  master 
■was  Christian,  but  when  it  sought  to  enforce  the  rule  the  masters  resisted,  either 
forbidding  the  baptism  or  demanding  from  the  clergy  the  value  of  the  slave  and 


58  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

he  was  frequently  a  man  of  trained  skill  and  education  is  seen 
in  the  provision  that,  if  his  master  confided  to  him  a  shop  or  a 
ship,  the  former  was  bound  to  fulfill  all  contracts  entered  into  by 
his  slave/  Thus  the  free  Castilian,  whose  business  was  war,  had 
his  trade  and  commerce  to  a  considerable  extent,  as  well  as  his 
agriculture,  carried  on  by  slaves,  and  the  rest  was  mostly  in  the 
hands  of  the  Jews  and  the  free  Moors  or  Mudejares.  Labor  thus 
became  the  badge  of  races  regarded  as  inferior ;  it  was  beneath  the 
dignity  of  the  freeman,  and  when,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  the 
industrious  population  was  expelled  by  bigotry,  the  prosperity  of 
Spain  collapsed. 

As  for  the  Mudejares,  the  practice  of  allowing  them  to  remain 
in  the  reconquered  territories  began  early.  Even  in  Galicia  they 
were  to  be  found,  and  in  Leon  documents  of  the  tenth  century 
contain  many  Moorish  names  among  those  who  confirm  or  wit- 
ness them.^  The  Fuero  of  Leon,  granted  by  Alfonso  V  in  1020, 
alludes  to  Moors  holding  slaves,  and  the  Berber  population  there 
is  still  represented  by  the  Maragatos,  to  the  south-west  of  Astorga 
— a  race  perfectly  distinct  from  the  Spaniards,  retaining  much 
of  their  African  costume  and  speaking  Castilian  imperfectly, 
although  it  is  their  only  language.^  Fernando  I  (1033-65),  who 
rendered  the  Kings  of  Toledo  and  Seville  tributary,  and  who  was 
besieging  Valencia  when  he  died,  alternated  in  his  policy  towards 
the  inhabitants  of  his  extensive  conquests.  In  the  early  part  of 
his  reign  he  allowed  them  to  remain;  then  he  adopted  depopula- 
tion, and  finally  he  returned  to  his  earlier  methods.*  Alfonso  VI 
followed  the  more  liberal  system;  when  he  occupied  Toledo,  in 
1085,  he  granted  a  capitulation  to  the  inhabitants  which  secured 
to  them  their  property  and  religion,  with  self-government  and 
the  possession  of  their  great  mosque.^  When,  during  his  absence, 
the  Frenchman,  Bernard  Abbot  of  Sahagun,  newly  elected  to  the 
archbishopric,  in  concert  with  his  queen,  Constance  of  Burgundy, 


seizing  pledges  to  ensure  payment.  Innocent  III  was  much  scandalized  by  this. 
In  1205  he  complained  to  Alfonso  IX  that  in  place  of  requiring  such  converted 
slaves  to  be  paid  for  at  the  price  fixed  by  the  canons  he  allowed  the  owner  to 
determine  the  value,  and  thus  the  Bishop  of  Burgos  had  recently  been  forced  to 
pay  two  hundred  gold  pieces  for  a  girl  not  worth  ten  deniers  (Innoc.  PP.  Ill, 
Regest.  VIII,  50;  ix,  150). 

*  Partidas,  P.  iv,  Tit.  xxi,  ley  7.       *  Femdndez  y  Gonzdiez,  pp.  21,  24-5. 

'  Dozy,  Recherches,  I,   124-6.  *  Ferndndez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  28. 

^  Ayala,  Cronica  de  Don  Pedro  I,  ano  ii,  cap.  xvii. 


Chap.  II]  THE  MUD^JABES  59 

suddenly  entered  the  mosque,  consecrated  it  and  placed  a  bell 
on  its  highest  minaret,  Alfonso  was  greatly  angered.  He  has- 
tened to  Toledo,  threatening  to  burn  both  the  queen  and  the 
archbishop,  and  only  pardoned  them  at  the  intercession  of  the 
Moors,  who  dreaded  possible  reprisals  after  his  death.  Hi^  policy, 
in  fact,  was  to  render  his  rule  more  attractive  to  the  Moslem 
population  than  that  of  his  tributaries,  the  petty  reyes  de  taijos, 
who  were  obliged  to  oppress  their  subjects  in  order  to  satisfy  his 
exigencies.  He  even  styled  himself  Emperador  de  los  dos  cidtos. 
His  tolerant  wisdom  justified  itself,  for,  after  the  coming  of  the 
Almoravides,  in  spite  of  the  disastrous  defeats  of  Zalaca  and  Ucles, 
he  was  able  to  hold  his  own  and  even  to  extend  his  boundaries, 
for  the  native  Moors  preferred  his  domination  to  that  of  the 
savage  Berbers.^ 

His  successors  followed  his  example,  but  it  was  not  regarded 
with  favor  by  the  Church.  During  the  centuries  of  mental  torpor 
which  preceded  the  dawn  of  modern  civilization  there  was  little 
fanaticism.  With  the  opening  of  the  twelfth  century  various 
causes  awoke  the  dormant  spirit.  Crusading  enthusiasm  brought 
increased  religious  ardor  and  the  labors  of  the  schoolmen  com- 
menced the  reconstruction  of  theology  which  was  to  render  the 
Church  dominant  over  both  worlds.  The  intellectual  and  spiritual 
movement  brought  forth  heresies  which,  by  the  commencement 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  aroused  the  Church  to  the  necessity  of 
summoning  all  its  resources  to  preserve  its  supremacy.  All  this 
made  itself  felt,  not  only  in  Albigensian  crusades  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Inquisition,  but  in  increased  intolerance  to  Jew 
and  Saracen,  in  a  more  fiery  antagonism  to  all  who  were  not 
included  in  the  pale  of  Christianity.  How  this  worked  was  seen, 
in  1212,  when,  after  the  brilUant  victory  of  Las  Navas  de  Tolosa, 
Alfonso  IX  advanced  to  Ubeda,  where  70,000  men  had  collected, 
and  they  offered  to  become  Mudejares  and  to  pay  him  a  million 
of  doblas.  The  terms  were  acceptable  and  he  agreed  to  them, 
but  the  clerical  chiefs  of  the  crusade,  the  two  archbishops,  Rod- 
rigo  of  Toledo  and  Arnaud  of  Narbonne,  objected  and  forced  him 
to  withdraw  his  assent.  He  offered  the  besieged  to  let  them 
depart  on  the  payment  of  the  sum,  but  they  were  unable  to  col- 
lect so  large  an  amount  on  the  spot,  and  they  were  put  to  the 


^  Femdndez  y  Gonzdlez,  pp.  39,  45-6,  58. 


(30  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

sword,  except  those  reserved  as  slaves.^  In  the  same  spirit 
Innocent  IV,  in  1248,  ordered  Jaime  I  of  Aragon  to  allow  no 
Saracens  to  reside  in  his  recently  conquered  Balearic  Isles  except 
as  slaves.^ 

In  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  Church  the  policy  of  the 
mudejalato  was  continued  until  the  work  of  the  Reconquest 
seemed  on  the  point  of  completion  under  San  Fernando  III.  The 
King  of  Granada  was  his  vassal,  like  any  other  Castilian  noble. 
He  subdued  the  rest  of  the  land,  giving  the  local  chiefs  advan- 
tageous terms  and  allowing  them  to  assume  the  title  of  kings. 
The  Spanish  Moors  were  thus  reduced  to  submission  and  he  was 
preparing  to  carry  his  arms  into  Africa  at  the  time  of  his  death, 
in  1252.^  That  Moorish  rule,  more  or  less  independent,  continued 
in  the  Peninsula  for  yet  two  centuries  and  a  half,  is  attributable 
solely  to  the  inveterate  turbulence  of  the  Castilian  magnates 
aided  by  the  disorderly  ambition  of  members  of  the  royal  family. 
During  this  interval  successive  fragments  were  added  to  Christian 
territory,  when  internal  convulsions  allowed  opportunities  of  con- 
quest, and  in  these  the  system  which  had  proved  so  advantageous 
was  followed.  Moor  and  Jew  were  citizens  of  the  realm,  regarded 
as  a  desirable  class  of  the  population,  and  entitled  to  the  public 
peace  and  security  for  their  property  under  the  same  sanction^ 
as  the  Catholic.^  They  are  enumerated  with  Christians  in  charters 
granting  special  exemptions  and  privileges  to  cities,  safeguards 
for  fairs  and  for  general  trade.^  Numerous  Fueros  which  have 
reached  us  place  all  races  on  the  same  level,  and  a  charter  of 
Alfonso  X,  in  1272,  to  the  city  of  Murcia,  in  its  regulations  as  to 

^  Mondexar,  Memorias  de  Alonso  VIII,  cap.  cv,  cviii. — Roderici  Toletani  de 
Rebus  Hispan.  Lib.  viii,  cap.  xii. 

^  Villanueva,  Viage  Literario,  XXI,  131.       ^  Ferndndez  y  Gonzalez,  p.  97. 

*  See  the  capitulation  of  Valencia  in  1232  (Villanueva,  XVII,  331);  also  the 
Constitutiones  Pads  et  TreugcB  of  Catalonia,  in  1214,  1225,  and  1228  (Marca 
Hispanica,  pp.  1402,  1407,  1413),  and  also  that  of  Rosellon,  in  1217  (D'Achery, 
Spicileg.  Ill,  587).  In  1279  Pedro  III  of  Aragon  issues  letters  "to  all  his  faithful 
Moors  of  the  frontier  of  Castile  and  Viar,"  inviting  them  to  come  and  populate 
Villareal,  offering  them  the  vacant  lands  there  and  pledging  them  security  for 
all  their  goods  (Coleccion  de  Documentos  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  VIII,  151). 

5  Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  V,  571,  573,  584,  600,  608,  622,  632;  VI,  93,  106,  112, 
220,  292,  308,  326,  385,  455.  A  charter  of  San  Fernando  III,  in  1246,  selling 
certain  lands  to  the  city  of  Toledo,  says  "  vendo  A  vos,  concejo  de  Toledo,  d  los 
caballeros  e  al  pueblo,  ^  d  cristianos  e  d  moros  ^  d  judios,  d  los  que  sodes  ^  d  los 
que  han  de  ser  adelant,  todos  aquellos  terminos,  etc." — Ferndndez  y  Gonzdlez, 
p.  319. 


Chap.  II]  THE  MUD^JABES  61 

the  cleansing  of  irrigating  canals,  shows  that  even  in  petty  details 
such  as  these  there  was  no  distinction  recognized  between  Chris- 
tian and  Moor/  The  safeguards  thrown  around  them  are  seen 
in  the  charter  of  1101,  granted  to  the  Mozarabes  of  Toledo  by- 
Alfonso  VI,  permitting  them  the  use  of  their  ancestral  Fuero 
Juzgo,  but  penalties  under  it  are  only  to  be  one-fifth,  as  in  the 
Fuero  of  Castile  "except  in  cases  of  theft  and  of  the  murder  of 
Jews  and  Moors,"  and  in  the  Fuero  of  Calatayud,  granted  by 
Alfonso  el  Batallador,  in  1131,  the  wergild  for  a  Jew  or  a  Moor  is 
300  sueldos,  the  same  as  for  a  Christian/  Yet  the  practice  as  to 
this  was  not  strictly  uniform,  and  the  conquering  race  naturally 
sought  to  establish  distinctions  which  should  recognize  its  supe- 
riority. The  Fuero  of  Madrid,  in  1202,  imposes  various  disabil- 
ities on  the  Moors/  A  law  of  Alfonso  X,  who  throughout  his 
reign  showed  himself  favorable  to  the  subject  races,  emphatically 
says  that,  if  a  Jew  strikes  a  Christian,  he  is  not  to  be  punished 
according  to  the  privileges  of  the  Jews,  but  as  much  more  severely 
as  a  Christian  is  better  than  a  Jew;  so  if  a  Christian  slays  a  Jew 
or  a  Moor  he  is  to  be  punished  according  to  the  Fuero  of  the  place, 
and  if  there  is  no  provision  for  the  case,  then  he  is  to  suffer  death 
or  banishment  or  other  penalty  as  the  king  may  see  fit,  but  the 
Moor  who  slays  a  Christian  is  to  suffer  more  severely  than  a  Chris- 
tian who  slays  a  Moor  or  a  Jew/ 

In  an  age  of  class  distinctions  this  was  an  inevitable  tendency 
and  it  is  creditable  to  Spanish  tolerance  and  humanity  that  its 
progress  was  so  slow.  In  the  violence  of  the  time  there  was  doubt- 
less much  arbitrary  oppression,  but  the  Mudejares  knew  their 
rights  and  had  no  hesitation  in  asserting  them,  nor  does  there 
seem  to  have  been  a  disposition  to  deny  them.  Thus,  in  1387, 
those  of  Bustiella  complained  to  Juan  I  that  the  royal  tax-col- 
lectors were  endeavoring  to  collect  from  them  the  Moorish  capita- 
tion tax,  to  which  they  were  not  subject,  having  in  heu  thereof 

*  Fernandez  y  Gonzdlez,  pp.  117,  122,  123. — Memorial  historico  espafiol,  I, 
285. 

2  Coleccion  de  C^dulas,  V,  29.— Femdndez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  294.  In  the  charter 
of  Hinestrosa  (1287)  the  wergild  for  homicide  is  500  sueldos.  In  that  of 
Arganzon  (1191)  allusion  is  made  to  the  wergild  of  500  sueldos,  but  the  special 
privilege  is  granted  that  the  murderer  shall  pay  only  250,  the  other  250  being 
remitted  "  for  the  sake  of  the  king's  soul."  In  the  charter  of  Amaya  (1285)  the 
wergild  is  sixty  maravedfs. — Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  V,  222,  112,  205). 

^  Memorias  de  la  Real  Academia  de  la  Historia,  VIII,  39. 

*  Leyes  de  Estilo,  83,  84. 


62  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

from  ancient  times  paid  to  the  Lords  of  Biscay  twelve  hundred 
maravedis  per  annum  and  being  entitled  to  enjoy  all  the  fran- 
chises and  liberties  of  Biscay,  whereupon  the  king  issued  an 
order  to  the  assessors  to  demand  from  them  only  the  agreed  sum 
and  no  other  taxes,  and  to  guarantee  to  them  all  the  franchises 
and  liberties,  uses  and  customs  of  the  Lordship  of  Biscay.^  Even 
more  suggestive  is  a  celebrated  case  occurring  as  late  as  the  reign 
of  Henry  IV,  In  1455  the  chaplains  of  the  Capella  de  la  Cruz  of 
Toledo  complained  to  the  king  that  the  tax  on  all  meat  slaughtered 
in  the  town  had  been  assigned  to  the  chapel  for  its  maintenance, 
but  that  the  Moors  had  established  their  own  slaughter-house  and 
refused  to  pay  the  tax.  Elsewhere  than  in  Spain  the  matter 
would  have  been  referred  to  an  ecclesiastical  court  with  a  conse- 
ciuent  decision  in  favor  of  the  faith,  but  here  it  went  to  the  civil 
court  with  the  result  that,  after  elaborate  argument  on  both  sides, 
in  1462  the  great  jurist  Alfonso  Diaz  de  Montalvan  rendered  a 
decision  recognizing  that  the  Moors  could  not  eat  meat  slaughtered 
in  the  Christian  fashion,  that  they  were  entitled  to  a  slaughter- 
house of  their  own,  free  of  tax,  but  that  they  must  not  sell  meat 
to  Christians  and  must  pay  the  tax  on  all  that  they  might  thus 
have  sold.^  Trivial  as  is  this  case,  it  gives  us  a  clear  insight  into 
the  independence  and  self-assertion  of  the  Moorish  communities 
and  the  readiness  of  the  courts  to  protect  them  in  their  rights. 

The  Mudejares  were  guaranteed  the  enjoyment  of  their  own 
religion  and  laws.  They  had  their  mosques  and  schools  and,  in 
the  earlier  times,  magistrates  of  their  own  race  who  decided  all 
questions  between  themselves  accorcUng  to  their  own  zunna  or 
law,  but  suits  between  Christian  and  Moor  were  sometimes  heard 
by  a  Christian  judge  and  sometimes  by  a  mixed  bench  of  both 
faiths.^  In  the  capitulations  it  was  generally  provided  that  they 
should  be  subject  only  to  the  taxes  exacted  by  their  previous 
sovereigns,  though  in  time  this  was  apt  to  be  disregarded.*  A  priv- 
ilege granted,  in  1254,  by  Alfonso  X  to  the  inhabitants  of  Seville, 


*  Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  V,  413. 

*  Fernandez  y  Gonzdlez,  pp.  407,  409.  By  a  confirmation  of  Pedro  IV  of 
Aragon,  in  1372,  to  the  aljama  of  Calatayud  it  appears  that  the  Moors  of  the  cities 
were  accustomed  to  have  special  shambles  where  their  meat  was  slaughtered  and 
marked  "secundum  eorum  ritum  sive  9unam." — Ibid.  p.  384. 

^  Coleccion  de  Documentos  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  IV,  130;  VI,  145. — Fer- 
ndndez  y  Gonzdlez,  pp.  286,  290,  386,  389. 

*  Ferndndez  y  Gonzdlez,  pp.  92,  94-5,  102. 


Chap.  II]  EFFORTS  AT  CONVERSION  53 

authorizing  them  to  purchase  land  of  Moors  throughout  their 
district,  shows  that  the  paternal  possessions  of  the  latter  had 
been  undisturbed ;  they  were  free  to  buy  and  sell  real  estate,  and 
although,  when  the  reactionary  period  commenced,  toward  the 
close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Sancho  IV  granted  the  petition 
of  the  Cortes  of  Valladohd  in  1293,  forbidding  Jews  and  Moors  to 
purchase  land  of  Christians,  the  restriction  soon  became  obsolete/ 
Not  only  was  there  no  prohibition  of  their  bearing  arms,  but  they 
were  hable  to  military  service.  Exemption  from  this  was  a  special 
privilege  accorded,  in  1115,  at  the  capitulation  of  Tudela;  in  1263 
Jaime  I  of  Aragon  released  the  Moors  of  Masones  from  tribute 
and  military  service  in  consideration  of  an  annual  payment  of 
1500  sueldos  jaquenses;  in  1283  his  son  Pedro  III,  when  preparing 
to  resist  the  invasion  of  Philippe  le  Hardi,  summoned  his  faithful 
Moors  of  Valencia  to  join  his  armies  and,  in  the  levies  made  in 
Murcia  in  1385  for  the  war  with  Portugal,  each  aljama  had  its 
assigned  quota.^ 

A  wise  policy  would  have  dictated  the  mingling  of  the  races  as 
much  as  possible,  so  as  to  encourage  unification  and  facilitate  the 
efforts  at  conversion  which  were  never  lost  to  sight.  The  con- 
verso  or  baptized  Moor  or  Jew  was  the  special  favorite  of  the 
legislator.  The  Moorish  law  which  disinherited  an  apostate  was 
set  aside  and  he  was  assured  of  his  share  in  the  paternal  estate; 
the  popular  tendency  to  stigmatize  him  as  a  tornadizo  or  renegat 
was  severely  repressed.  The  Church  insisted  that  a  Moorish  cap- 
tive who  sincerely  sought  baptism  should  be  set  free.  Dominicans 
and  Franciscans  were  empowered  to  enter  all  places  where  Jews 
and  Moors  dwelt,  to  assemble  them  to  hsten  to  sermons,  while  the 
royal  officials  were  directed  to  compel  the  attendance  of  those 
who  would  not  come  voluntarily.^  It  is  easy  now  to  see  that  this 
policy,  which  resulted  in  winning  over  multitudes  to  the  faith, 
would  have  been  vastly  more  fruitful  if  the  races  had  been  com- 
pelled to  associate  together,  and  infinite  subsequent  misery  and 

^  Archive  de  Sevilla,  Seccion  Primera,  Carpeta  i,  n.  49. — Ferndndez  y  Gonzdlez, 
pp.  351,  353,  363. — Ordenanzas  Reales,  viii,  iii,  31. — Memorial  historico  espanol, 
I,  81,  152. 

^  Fernjindez  y  Gonzalez,  pp.  221,  286. — Coleccion  de  Documentos  de  la  Corona 
de  Aragon,  VI,  157,  196.— Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  II,  309. 

3  Aguirre,  V,  225,  227;  VI,  369.— Cap.  5  Extra  v,  vi.— Cap.  2  Extrav.  Commun. 
V,  ii. — Tratados  de  Legislacion  Musulmana,  p.  216  (Madrid,  1853). — Partidas, 
P.  VII,  Tit.  XXV,  leyes  2,  3. — Constitutions  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i,  cap.  3,  4 
(Barcelona,  1588). — Concil.  Tarraconens.  ann.  1245  (Aguirre,  VI,  306). 


64  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

misfortune  would  have  been  averted,  but  this  was  a  stretch  of 
tolerant  humanity  virtually  impossible  at  the  time.  The  Church, 
as  will  be  seen,  exerted  every  effort  to  keep  them  apart,  on  the 
humiliating  pretext  that  she  would  lose  more  souls  than  she 
would  gain,  and  there  was,  moreover,  sufficient  mutual  distrust 
to  render  separation  desired  on  both  sides.  At  a  very  early  period 
of  the  Reconquest  the  policy  was  adopted  of  assigning  a  special 
quarter  of  a  captured  town  to  the  Moors,  and  thus  the  habit  was 
established  of  provicUng  a  Moreria  in  the  larger  cities,  to  which 
the  Mudejares  were  confined.  The  process  is  well  illustrated  by 
what  occurred  at  Murcia,  when,  in  1266,  it  was  definitely  recon- 
quered for  Alfonso  X  by  Jaime  I  of  Aragon.  He  gave  half  the 
houses  to  Aragonese  and  Catalans  and  restricted  the  Moors  to 
the  quarter  of  the  Arrijaca.  Alfonso  confirmed  the  arrangement, 
dislodging  the  Christians  from  among  the  Moors  and  building  a 
wall  between  them.  His  decree  on  the  subject  recites  that  this 
was  done  at  the  prayer  of  the  Moors,  who  were  despoiled  and  ill- 
treated  by  the  Christians,  and  who  desired  the  protection  of  a 
wall,  to  the  construction  of  which  he  devoted  one-half  of  the 
revenues  levied  for  the  repair  of  the  city  walls.  It  was  the  same 
with  the  Jews, -who  were  not  to  dwell  among  the  Christians,  but 
to  have  their  Juderia  set  apart  for  them  near  the  Orihuela  gate.^ 
Besides  this  segregation  from  the  Christians  in  the  cities  there 
were  smaller  towns  in  which  the  population  was  purely  Moorish, 
where  Christians  were  not  allowed  to  dwell.  That  this  was 
regarded  as  a  privilege  we  can  readily  imagine,  and  it  is  shown 
by  the  confirmation,  in  1255,  by  Alfonso  X  of  an  agreement  with 
the  Mudejares  of  Moron  under  which  they  are  to  sell  their  proper- 
ties to  Christians  and  remove  to  Silebar,  where  they  are  to  build 
a  castle  and  houses,  to  be  free  of  all  taxes  for  three  years, 
their  law  is  to  be  administered  by  their  own  alcadi  and  no  Chris- 
tian is  to  reside  there  except  the  almojarife,  or  tax-gatherer,  and 
his  men.  ^  All  this  tended  to  perpetuate  the  separation  between 
the  Christian  and  the  Moor,  and  a  further  potent  cause  is  to  be 
found  in  the  horror  with  which  miscegenation  was  regarded — at 
least  when  the  male  offender  was  a  Moor,     Intermarriage,  of 


*  Femdndez  y  Gonzdlez,  pp.  107-8,  120,  286,  359. — Memorial  historico  espanol, 
I,  285. — For  the  manner  in  which  the  houses  of  conquered  towns  were  distributed 
see  the  Repariimiento  de  Jerez  de  la  Frontera  by  Alfonso  X  in  this  same  year 
1266,  printed  by  Padre  Fidel  Fita  (Boletin,  Junio,  1887,  pp.  465  sqq.). 

'  Ferndndez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  346. 


Chap.  II]     DENATIONALIZATION  OF  THE  MUDJ^J ARES  65 

course,   was  impossible  between   those  of  different  faiths  and 
illicit  connections  were  punished  in  the  most  savage  manner/ 

In  spite  of  this  natural  but  impolitic  segregation,  the  Mude- 
jares  gradually  became  denationalized  and  assimilated  them- 
selves in  many  ways  to  the  population  by  which  they  were  sur- 
rounded. In  time  they  forgot  their  native  language  and  it 
became  necessary  for  their  learned  men  to  compile  law-books  in 
Castilian  for  the  guidance  of  their  alcadis.  Quite  a  literature  of 
this  kind  arose  and,  even  after  the  final  expulsion,  as  late  as  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  among  the  refugees  in  Tunis, 
a  manual  of  reHgious  observances  was  composed  in  Spanish,  the 
author  of  which  lamented  that  even  the  sacred  characters  in 
which  the  Koran  was  written  were  almost  unknown  and  that  the 
rites  of  worship  were  forgotten  or  mingled  with  usages  and  cus- 
toms borrowed  from  the  Christians.^  The  Mudejares  even  sym- 
pathized with  the  patriotic  aspirations  of  their  Castilian  neighbors 
as  against  their  independent  brethren.  When,  in  1340,  Alfonso 
XI  returned  in  triumph  to  Seville,  after  the  overwhelming  victory 
of  the  Rio  Salado,  we  are  told  how  the  Moors  and  their  women 
united  with  the  Jews  in  the  rejoicings  which  greeted  the  con- 
queror.^ Even  more  practical  was  the  response  to  the  appeal  of 
the  Infante  Fernando,  in  1410,  when  he  was  besieging  Antequera, 
one  of  the  bulwarks  of  Granada,  and  was  in  great  straits  for 


'  Coleccion  de  Documentos  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  VI,  255. — Partidas,  P.  vii 
Tit.  XXV,  ley  10. 

^  Tratados  de  Legislacion  Musulmana,  p.  7  (Madrid,  1853).  In  this  collection 
the  Leyes  de  los  Moras  probably  date  from  about  the  year  1300.  Ice  Gebir's 
Suma  de  los  principales  Mandamientos  was  written  in  1462.  It  would  not  be 
easy  to  find  a  more  practical  moral  code  than  that  presented  in  the  short  precepts 
assembled  in  Ice  Gebir's  first  chapter  (pp.  250  sqq.).  It  is  somewhat  surprising 
to  learn  that  in  the  alchihed,  or  holy  war  against  Christians,  it  was  forbidden  to 
slay  non-combatants — women,  children,  old  men  and  even  monks  and  friars 
unless  they  defended  themselves  by  force  (cap.  xxxv,  p.  333).  Even  harmless 
things,  such  as  ants  and  frogs,  are  not  to  be  deprived  of  life  (cap.  clvii,  p.  400). 
The  vital  reproach  to  be  brought  against  Islam  is  the  position  assigned  to  woman 
— her  degradation  in  her  relations  to  man,  and  her  scant  recognition  as  a  human 
being.  In  a  classification  of  society  into  twelve  orders,  the  eleventh  is  that  of 
baldios  or  robbers,  sorcerers,  pirates,  drunkards,  etc.,  and  the  twelfth  and  lowest 
is  woman  (lb.  cap.  Ix,  pp.  412,  415). 

'  The  ballad  chronicler  relates  how — 

Et  los  moros  e  las  moras  Los  judfos  con  las  toras 

Muy  grandes  juegos  hacian,  Estos  Reyes  bien  recibian. 

Femdndez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  239. 
5 


66  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

money.  He  wrote  "muy  afectuosamente"  to  Seville  and  Cor- 
dova, not  only  to  the  Christians  but  to  the  Moorish  and  Jewish 
al jamas  and,  as  he  was  popular  with  them,  they  advanced  him 
what  sums  they  could/  The  process  of  denationalization  and 
fusion  with  the  Christian  community  was  necessarily  slow,  but 
its  progress  gave  gratifying  promise  of  a  result,  requiring  only 
wise  patience  and  sympathy,  which  would  have  averted  incal- 
culable misfortunes. 

In  a  financial  and  industrial  point  of  view  the  Mudejares 
formed  a  most  valuable  portion  of  the  population.  The  revenues 
derived  from  them  were  among  the  most  reliable  resources  of  the 
State;  assignments  on  them  were  frequently  used  as  the  safest 
and  most  convenient  form  of  securing  appanages  and  dowries  and 
incomes  for  prelates  and  religious  establishments.^  To  the  nobles 
on  whose  lands  they  were  settled  they  were  almost  indispensable, 
for  they  were  skilful  agriculturists  and  the  results  of  their  inde- 
fatigable labors  brought  returns  which  could  be  realized  in  no 
other  way.  That  they  should  be  relentlessly  exploited  was  a  mat- 
ter of  course.  A  fuero  granted,  in  1371,  by  the  Almirante  Ambrosio 
de  Bocanegra  to  his  Mudejares  of  Palma  del  Rio,  not  only  speci- 
fies their  dues  and  taxes,  but  prescribes  that  they  shall  bake  in 
the  seignorial  oven  and  bathe  in  the  seignorial  bath  and  purchase 
their  necessaries  in  the  seignorial  shops.^  They  were  not  only 
admirable  husbandmen  and  artificers,  but  distinguished  them- 
selves in  the  higher  regions  of  science  and  art.  As  physicians  they 
ranked  with  the  Jews,  and  when,  in  1345,  Ferrant  Rodriguez, 
Prior  of  the  Order  of  Santiago,  built  the  Church  of  Our  Lady  of 
Ucles,  he  assembled  "Moorish  masters"  and  good  Christian 
stone-masons,  who  constructed  it  of  stone  and  mortar.^  The 
industry  of  Spain  was  to  a  great  extent  in  their  hands.  To  them 
the  land  owed  the  introduction  of  the  sugar-cane,  cotton,  silk, 
the  fig,  the  orange  and  the  almond.  Their  system  of  irrigation, 
still  maintained  to  the  present  time,  was  elaborately  perfect,  and 
they  had  built  highways  and  canals  to  facilitate  intercourse  and 
transportation.  Valencia,  which  was  densely  populated  by  Mude- 
jares, was  regarded  as  one  of  the  richest  provinces  in  Europe,  pro- 
ducing largely  of  sugar,  oil  and  wine.    In  manufacturing  skill  they 

^  Cronica  de  Juan  II,  ano  iv,  cap.  26. 

*  Coleccion  de  Documentos  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  VIII,  53. — Memorial 
historico  espanol,  I,  239,  263;  III,  439. 

»  Femdndez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  389.  *  Ibid.  pp.  382,  386. 


Chap.  II]  THE  MUDJ^JABES  67 

were  no  less  distinguished.  Their  fabrics  of  silk  and  cotton  and 
linen  and  wool  were  exquisite ;  their  potteries  and  porcelains  were 
models  for  the  workmen  of  the  rest  of  Europe;  their  leather-work 
was  unsurpassed;  their  manufactures  of  metals  were  eagerly 
sought  in  distant  lands,  while  their  architecture  manifests  their 
delicate  skill  and  artistic  taste.  Marriages  were  arranged  for 
girls  at  11  and  boys  at  12;  dowries  were  of  little  account,  for  a 
bed  and  a  few  coins  were  deemed  sufficient  where  all  were  indus- 
trious and  self-supporting,  and  their  rapid  increase,  like  evil 
weeds,  was  a  subject  of  complaint  to  their  Castilian  detractors. 
Ingenious  and  laborious,  sober  and  thrifty,  a  dense  population 
found  livelihood  in  innumerable  trades,  in  which  men,  women 
and  children  all  labored,  producing  wealth  for  themselves  and 
prosperity  for  the  land.  In  commerce  they  were  equally  success- 
ful; they  were  slaves  to  their  word,  their  reputation  for  probity 
and  honor  was  universal,  and  their  standing  as  merchants  was 
proverbial.  There  was  no  beggary  among  them  and  quarrels  were 
rare,  differences  being  for  the  most  part  amicably  settled  without 
recourse  to  their  judges.^ 

It  is  not  easy  to  set  limits  to  the  prosperity  attainable  by  the 
Peninsula  with  its  natural  resources  developed  by  a  population 
combining  the  vigor  of  the  Castilian  with  the  industrial  capacity 
of  the  Moor.  All  that  was  needed  was  Christian  patience  and 
good  will  to  kindle  and  encourage  kindly  feeling  between  the 
conquering  and  the  subject  race;  time  would  have  done  the  rest. 
The  infidel,  won  over  to  Christianity,  would  have  become  fused 
with  the  faithful,  and  a  united  people,  blessed  with  the  character- 
istics of  both  races,  would  have  been  ready  to  take  the  foremost 
place  in  the  wonderful  era  of  industrial  civilization  which  was 

*  Janer,  Condicion  Social  de  los  Moriscos  de  Espana,  pp.  47-9,  161,  162 
(Madrid,  1857). 

Under  the  Saracen  domination,  Almerfa  was  the  chief  port  of  Spain,  crowded 
with  ships  from  Syria  and  Egypt,  Pisa  and  Genoa.  It  boasted  of  a  thousand 
inns  for  strangers  and  four  thousand  weaving  shops,  besides  manufactures 
of  copper,  iron  and  glass  (Dozy,  Recherches,  I,  244-5).  For  the  wonderful 
wealth  of  the  Moors  under  the  caliphs  of  Cordova,  showing  the  capacity  of  the 
race  and  of  the  land,  see  Conde's  "  Arabs  in  Spain,"  P.  ii,  cap.  94.  How  unfitted 
was  the  Castilian  chivalry  to  perpetuate  this  prosperity  is  seen  in  a  letter  of 
Alfonso  X  in  1258,  reciting  how  he  had  peopled  with  Christians  the  flourishing 
city  of  Alicante,  as  it  was  a  stronghold  and  one  of  the  best  seaports;  how  the 
allotment  of  lands  had  given  dissatisfaction  and  on  investigation  he  had  found 
that  the  Christians  could  not  live  and  prosper  there,  wherefore  he  now  makes  a 
new  repartimiento  (Memorial  historico  espanol,  I,  135). 


g3  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

about  to  open.  Unhappily  for  Spain  this  was  not  to  be.  To  the 
conscientious  churchman  of  the  Middle  Ages  any  compact  with 
the  infidel  was  a  league  with  Satan;  he  could  not  be  forcibly 
brought  into  the  fold,  but  it  was  the  plainest  of  duties  to  render 
his  position  outside  so  insupportable  that  he  would  take  refuge 
in  conversion. 

The  Church  accordingly  viewed  with  repugnance  the  policy 
of  conciliation  and  toleration  which  had  so  greatly  facilitated  the 
work  of  the  Reconquest,  and  it  lost  no  opportunity  of  exciting 
popular  distrust  and  contempt  for  the  Mudejares.  We  shall  see 
how  great  was  its  success  with  respect  to  the  Jews,  whose  position 
offered  better  opportunity  for  attack,  but  it  was  not  without 
results  as  respects  the  Moors.  It  discouraged  all  intercourse 
between  the  races  and  endeavored  to  keep  them  separate.  Even 
the  indispensable  freedom  of  ordinary  commercial  dealings,  which 
was  provided  for  by  the  secular  rulers,  was  frowned  upon,  and  in 
1250  the  Order  of  Santiago  was  obliged  to  represent  to  Innocent 
IV  that  it  had  Moorish  vassals,  and  to  supplicate  him  for  license 
to  buy  and  sell  with  them,  which  he  graciously  permitted.^  The 
most  efficacious  means,  however,  of  establishing  and  perpetuating 
the  distinction  between  the  races  was  that  Jews  and  Moors 
should  wear  some  peculiar  garment  or  badge  by  which  they  should 
be  recognized  at  sight.  This  was  not  only  a  mark  of  inferiority 
and  a  stigma,  but  it  exposed  the  wearer  to  insults  and  outrages, 
rendering  it  both  humiliating  and  dangerous,  especially  to  those, 
such  as  muleteers  or  merchants,  whose  avocations  rendered  travel 
on  the  unsafe  highways  indispensable.  When  the  Church  was 
aroused  from  its  torpor  to  combat  infidelity  in  all  its  forms,  this 
was  one  of  the  measures  adopted  by  the  great  council  of  Lateran 
in  1216,  in  a  regulation  carried  into  the  canon  law,  the  reason 
alleged  being  that  it  was  necessary  to  prevent  miscegenation.^ 


»  Femdndez  y  Gonzalez,  pp.  294,  321,  367.  Cf.  Concil.  Vallisolet.  ann.  1322, 
cap.  xxii;  C.  Toletan.  ann.  1324,  cap.  viii  (Aguirre,  V,  251,  259);  Concil.  Pari- 
siensis,  ann.  1212,  Addend,  cap.  i  (Martene  Ampliss.  Collect.  VII,  1420). 

*  Concil.  Lateran.  IV,  ann.  1216,  cap.  Ixviii  (cap.  15,  Extra,  v,  vi).  This  device 
originated  among  the  Saracens  of  the  East,  who,  in  the  eleventh  century,  required 
Jews  and  Christians  to  wear  distinctive  badges  (Fernandez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  16). 
The  earliest  trace  of  it  in  the  West  is  found  in  the  charter  of  Alais,  in  1200,  which 
prescribes  distinctive  vestments  for  Jews  (Robert,  Les  Signes  d'Infamie  au 
Moyen  Age,  p.  7).  In  Italy,  Frederic  II  obeyed  the  Lateran  decree  by  ordering, 
in  1221,  all  Jews  to  wear  distinguishing  garments  (Richardi  de  S.  German.  Chron. 
ap.  Muratori,  S.  R.  I.,  VII,  993),  but  he  did  not  insert  this  in  the  Sicilian  Consti- 


Chap.  II]  DISTINCTIVE  BADGES  69 

In  1217  Honorius  III  peremptorily  ordered  the  enforcement  of 
this  decree  in  Castile,  but,  two  years  later,  consented  to  suspend 
it,  on  the  remonstrance  of  San  Fernando  III,  backed  by  Rodrigo, 
Archbishop  of  Toledo.  The  king  represented  that  many  Jews 
would  abandon  his  kingdom  rather  than  wear  badges,  while  the 
rest  would  be  driven  to  plots  and  conspiracies,  and,  as  the  greater 
part  of  his  revenues  was  derived  from  them,  he  would  be  unable 
to  carry  out  his  enterprises  against  the  Saracens.^  It  was  difficult 
to  arouse  intolerance  and  race  hatred  in  Spain,  and,  when  Gregory 
IX,  about  1233,  and  Innocent  IV,  in  1250,  ordered  the  Castilian 
prelates  to  enforce  the  Lateran  canons,  San  Fernando  quietly  dis- 
regarded the  injunction.^  His  son,  Alfonso  X,  so  far  yielded 
obedience  that,  in  the  Partidas,  he  ordered,  under  a  penalty  of  ten 
gold  maravedis  or  ten  lashes,  all  Jews,  male  and  female,  to  wear 
a  badge  on  the  cap,  alleging  the  same  reason  as  the  Lateran  coun- 
cil, but  he  did  not  extend  this  to  the  Moors  and,  as  his  code  was 
not  confirmed  by  the  Cortes  for  nearly  a  century,  the  regulation 
may  be  regarded  as  inoperative.'  The  council  of  Zamora,  which 
did  so  much  to  stimulate  intolerance,  in  January,  1313,  ordered 
the  badge  to  be  worn,  as  it  was  in  other  lands,  and  later  in  the 
year  the  Cortes  of  Plasencia  proposed  to  obey,  but  were  told  by 
the  Infante  Juan,  who  presided  as  guardian  of  Alfonso  XI,  that 
he  would,  after  consultation,  do  what  was  for  the  advantage  of 
the  land.'*  In  Aragon,  the  councils  of  Tarragona,  in  1238  and 
1282,  vainly  ordered  the  canon  to  be  obeyed,  and  it  was  not  until 
1300  that  the  attempt  was  made  with  an  ordinance  requiring  the 
Mudejares  to  wear  the  hair  cut  in  a  peculiar  fashion  that  should 
be  distinctive.^  In  Castile,  at  length,  Henry  II,  in  pursuance  of 
the  request  of  the  Cortes  of  Toro  in  1371,  ordered  all  Jews  and 
Moors  to  wear  the  badge  (a  red  circle  on  the  left  shoulder),  but 

tutions  or  include  his  Saracen  subjects.  In  1254  the  council  of  Albi  prescribed 
for  Jews  a  circle,  a  finger-breadth  in  width,  to  be  worn  upon  the  breast,  and  that 
of  Ravenna,  in  1311,  a  yellow  circle  (Harduin.  VII,  458,  1370).  In  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  Neapolitan  Jews  were  required  to  wear  as  a  sign  the  Hebrew  letter 
Tau  (Wadding,  Annal.  Minor.  T.  Ill,  Regest.  p.  392). 

*  Raynald.  Annal.  ann.  1217,  n.  84. — Amador  de  los  Rios,  Hist,  de  los  Judfos 
de  Espana,  I,  361-2,  554. 

^  Amador  de  los  Rios,  I,  362,  364. 
'  Partidas,  P.  vii.  Tit.  xxiv,  ley  11. 

*  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  I,  227.  ' 

*  Concil.  Tarraconens.  ann.  1238,  cap.  iv;  ann.  1282,  cap.  v  (Martene  Ampliss. 
Collect.  VIII,  132,  280).— Ferndndez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  369.— Constitutions  de 
Cathalunya  superfluas,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  v,  cap.  12  (Barcelona,  1589,  p.  8), 


70  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

the  injunction  had  to  be  frequently  repeated  and  was  slenderly 
obeyed.  Even  so,  to  it  may  be  attributed  the  frequent  murders 
which  followed  of  Jews  on  the  highways,  the  perpetrators  of 
which  were  rarely  identified/ 

What  was  the  spirit  which  the  Church  thus  persistently  endeav- 
ored to  arouse  in  Spain  may  be  gathered  from  a  brief  of  Clement 
IV,  in  1266,  to  Jaime  I  of  Aragon,  urging  him  to  expel  all 
Mudejares  from  his  dominions.  He  assures  the  king  that  his 
reputation  will  suffer  greatly  if,  for  temporal  advantage,  he  longer 
permits  such  opprobrium  of  God,  such  an  infection  of  Christen- 
dom, as  proceeds  indubitably  from  the  horrible  cohabitation  of 
the  Moors,  with  its  detestable  horrors  and  horrid  foulness.  By 
expelling  them  he  will  fulfil  his  vow  to  God,  stop  the  mouths  of 
his  detractors  and  prove  himself  zealous  for  the  faith.^  The  same 
temper  was  shown,  in  1278,  by  Nicholas  III,  when  he  scolded 
Alfonso  X  for  entering  into  truces  with  the  Moors,  and,  by  threat- 
ening to  deprive  him  of  the  share  granted  to  him  of  the  church 
revenues,  incited  him  to  the  disastrous  siege  of  Algeciras,  the 
failure  of  which  led  him  to  form  an  alliance  with  the  King  of 
Morocco.^  Fortunately  this  papal  zeal  for  the  faith  found  no 
Ximenes  in  Spain  to  spread  it  among  the  people  and  to  kindle  the 
fires  of  intolerance.  The  Spanish  Church  of  the  period  appears 
to  have  been  wholly  quiescent.  The  only  action  on  record  is  the 
trivial  one  of  Arnaldo  de  Peralta,  Bishop  of  Valencia,  from  1261 
to  1273,  who  forbade,  under  pain  of  excommunication,  his  clergy 
from  drinking  wine  in  the  house  of  a  Jew,  provided  they  should 
have  heard  of  or  should  remember  the  prohibition ;  and  he  further 
vaguely  threatened  with  his  displeasure  any  cleric  who  should 
knowingly  buy  the  wine  of  a  Jew,  except  in  case  of  necessity.* 


^  Ayala,  Cronica  de  Enrique  II,  afio  vi,  cap.  vii. — Cortes  de  Ids  antiguos 
Reinos,  II,  281. 

*  RipoU  Bullar.  Ord.  FF.  Prsedic.  I,  479.  It  was  apparently  in  return  for  a 
tithe  of  ecclesiastical  revenues  that  Jaime  pledged  himself  to  the  pope  to  expel 
the  Moors,  but  he  was  too  wise  a  statesman  to  do  so,  and  as  late  as  1275  he 
invited  additional  settlers  by  the  promise  of  a  year's  exemption  from  taxation. 
On  his  death-bed  in  1276,  however,  partly,  no  doubt  in  consequence  of  a  danger- 
ous Moorish  revolt,  and  partly  owing  to  the  awakened  fears  shown  by  his  taking 
the  Cistercian  habit,  he  enjoined  his  son  Pedro  to  fulfil  the  promise,  and  in  a 
codicil  to  his  will  he  emphatically  repeated  the  request  (Danvila  y  Collado,  La 
Expulsion  de  los  Moriscos,  p.  24. — Swift,  James  the  First  of  Aragon,  pp.  140, 
253,  290),  but  Pedro  was  obdurate. 

^  Femdndez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  109.       *  Constitt.  Valentin.  (Aguirre,  V,  206). 


Chap.  II]  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CHURCH  71 

That,  in  the  confusion  which  followed  the  rebellion  of  Sancho 
IV  against  his  father,  there  may  have  arisen  a  desire  to  limit 
somewhat  the  privileges  of  Jew  and  Moor  is  rendered  probable 
by  the  legislation  of  the  Cortes  of  Valladolid,  in  1293,  to  which 
allusion  has  already  been  made  (p.  63),  but  the  decisive  impulse 
which  aroused  the  Spanish  Church  from  its  indolent  indifference 
and  set  it  earnestly  to  work  in  exciting  popular  hatred  and  intol- 
erance, would  seem  traceable  to  the  council  of  Vienne  in  1311-12. 
Among  the  published  canons  of  the  council,  the  only  one  relating 
to  Moors  is  a  complaint  that  those  dwelling  in  Christian  lands 
have  their  priests,  called  Zabazala,  who,  from  the  minarets  of  their 
mosques,  at  certain  hours  invoke  Mahomet  and  sound  his  praises 
in  a  loud  voice,  and  also  that  they  are  accustomed  to  gather 
around  the  grave  of  one  whom  they  worship  as  a  saint.  These 
practices  are  denounced  as  unendurable,  and  the  princes  are 
ordered  to  suppress  them,  with  the  alternative  of  gaining  salva- 
tion or  of  enduring  punishment  which  shall  make  them  serve  as 
a  terrifying  example.^  This  threat  fell  upon  deaf  ears.  In  1329 
the  council  of  Tarragona  complains  of  its  inobservance  and  orders 
all  temporal  lords  to  enforce  it  within  two  months,  under  pain  of 
interdict  and  excommunication,^  and  a  hundred  years  later  the 
council  of  Tortosa,  in  1429,  supplicated  the  King  of  Aragon  and 
all  prelates  and  nobles,  by  the  bowels  of  divine  mercy,  to  enforce 
the  canon  and  all  other  conciliar  decrees  for  the  exaltation  of 
the  faith  and  the  humiliation  of  Jews  and  Moors,  and  to  cause 
their  observance  by  their  subjects  if  they  wish  to  escape  the  ven- 
geance of  God  and  of  the  Holy  See.  This  was  equally  ineffectual, 
and  it  was  reserved  for  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  about  1482,  to 
enforce  the  canon  of  Vienne  with  a  vigor  which  brought  a  remon- 
strance from  the  Grand  Turk.^ 

More  serious  was  the  effect  upon  the  Jews  of  the  spirit  awakened 
at  Vienne.  That  council,  besides  enacting  very  severe  laws 
against  usury,  denounced  the  privilege  accorded  in  Spain  to  Jews, 
whereby  Jewish  witnesses  were  requisite  for  the  conviction  of 
Jewish  defendants.    It  did  not  presume  to  annul  this  privilege, 

'  Cap.  1  Clementin.  Lib.  v,  Tit.  ii. 

'  Concil.  Tarraconens.  ann.  1329  (Aguirre,  VI,  370). 

'  Concil.  Dertusan.  ann.  1429,  cap.  xx  (Aguirre,  V,  340). — Raynald.  Annal. 
ann.  14S3,  n.  45. 

In  1370  the  Carta  Puebla  granted  by  Buenaventura  de  Arborea  to  the  Moors 
of  Chelva  specifically  allowed  their  alfaqufes  to  cry  Aid  Zald,  as  was  their  wont 
in  the  time  of  Pedro,  her  late  husband. — Femdndez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  386. 


72  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

but  forbade  all  intercourse  between  the  races  wherever  it  was  in 
force.*  The  Spanish  prelates,  in  returning  from  the  council  in 
1312,  brought  with  them  these  canons  and  the  spirit  of  intolerance 
that  dictated  them  and  made  haste  to  give  expression  to  it  at  the 
council  of  Zamora,  in  January,  1313,  in  a  number  of  canons,  the 
temper  of  which  is  so  different  from  the  previous  utterances  of  the 
Spanish  Church  that  it  shows  the  revolution  wrought  in  their 
mode  of  thinking  by  intercourse  with  their  brethren  from  other 
lands.  Henceforth,  in  this  respect,  the  Spanish  Church  emerges 
from  its  isolation  and  distinguishes  itself  by  even  greater  ferocity 
than  that  which  disgraced  the  rest  of  Christendom,  The  fathers 
of  Zamora  invoked  the  curse  of  God  and  of  St.  Peter  on  all  who 
should  endeavor  to  enforce  the  existing  laws  requiring  the  evi- 
dence of  Jews  to  convict  Jews.  They  denounced  the  Jews  as 
serpents,  who  were  only  to  be  endured  by  Christians  because  they 
were  human  beings,  but  were  to  be  kept  in  strict  subjection  and 
servitude,  and  they  sought  to  reduce  this  principle  to  practice  by 
a  series  of  canons  restricting  the  Jews  in  every  way  and  putting 
an  end  to  all  social  intercourse  between  them  and  Christians.^ 
The  friendly  mingling  of  the  races,  which  shows  how  little  the 
prejudices  of  the  churchmen  were  shared  by  the  people  at  this 
period,  became  a  favorite  subject  of  objurgation  and  required  a 
long  series  of  efforts  to  eradicate,  but  the  Church  triumphed  at 
last,  and  the  seeds  of  envy,  hatred  and  all  uncharitableness,  which 
it  so  assiduously  planted  and  cultivated,  yielded  in  the  end  an 
abundant  harvest  of  evil.  What  prepossessions  of  Christian 
kindness  the  prelates  of  Zamora  felt  that  they  had  to  overcome 
are  indicated   in  the  final    command   that  these    constitutions 


'  Cap.  1  Clementin.  Lib.  n,  Tit.  viii;  Lib.  v,  Tit.  v. 

'  Although  the  acts  of  the  council  of  Zamora  were  fully  confirmed  by  the 
Cortes  of  Palencia  in  1313  (Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  I,  227,  240-1),  it 
seemed  impossible  to  enforce  them.  In  1331  the  Cortes  of  Madrid  ineffectually 
petitioned  that  Christians  denying  debts  to  Jews  could  offer  another  Christian 
as  a  witness  and  not  be  obliged  to  have  a  Jew.  The  Fuero  Viejo  de  Castiella,  as 
revised  in  1356,  however,  grants  the  privilege  (Lib.  iii.  Tit.  iv,  ley  19).  The 
editors  of  the  Fuero,  Asso  and  Manuel  (Ed.  1847,  p.  83)  say  that  the  practice 
varied,  and  that  Henry  III,  in  the  Cortes  of  Madrid,  in  1405,  again  granted  the 
privilege.  As  early  as  1263  Alfonso  X  had  enacted  that  in  mixed  suits  a  Jew 
could  not  demand  that  his  opponent  should  produce  as  witnesses  a  Christian  and 
a  Jew,  but  that  the  evidence  of  two  good  Christians  should  suffice. — Memorial 
historico  espanol,  I,  207.  The  point  has  interest  as  an  evidence  of  the  desire  to 
protect  Jews  from  imposition. 


Chap.  II]  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CHURCH  73 

should  be  read  publicly  in  all  churches  annually,  and  that  the 
bishops  should  compel  by  excommunication  all  secular  magis- 
trates to  enforce  them.^ 

The  Spanish  Church,  thus  fairly  started  in  this  deplorable 
direction,  pursued  its  course  with  characteristic  energy.  In  1322 
the  utterances  of  the  council  of  Valladolid  reveal  how  intimate 
were  the  customary  relations  between  Christian  and  infidel,  and 
how  the  Church,  in  place  of  taking  advantage  of  this,  labored  to 
keep  the  races  asunder.  The  council  recites  that  scandals  arise 
and  churches  are  profaned  by  the  prevaihng  custom  of  Moors  and 
Jews  attending  divine  service,  wherefore  they  are  to  be  expelled 
before  the  ceremonies  of  the  mass  begin,  and  all  who  endeavor  to 
prevent  it  are  to  be  excommunicated.  The  habit  of  nocturnal 
devotional  vigils  in  churches  is  also  said,  probably  with  truth, 
to  be  the  source  of  much  evil,  and  all  who  bring  Moors  and  Jews 
to  take  part  with  their  voices  and  instruments  are  to  be  expelled. 
To  preserve  the  faithful  from  pollution  by  Moorish  and  Jewish 
superstitions,  they  are  commanded  no  more  to  frequent  the  wed- 
dings and  funerals  of  the  infidels.  The  absurd  and  irrational  abuse 
whereby  Jews  and  Moors  are  placed  in  office  over  Christians  is  to 
be  extirpated,  and  all  prelates  shall  punish  it  with  excommunica- 
tion. As  the  malice  of  Moors  and  Jews  leads  them  craftily  to  put 
Christians  to  death,  under  pretext  of  curing  them  by  medicine  and 
surgery  and,  as  the  canons  forbid  Christians  from  employing 
them  as  physicians,  and  as  these  canons  are  not  observed  in  con- 
sequence of  the  negligence  of  the  prelates,  the  latter  are  ordered 
to  enforce  them  strictly  with  the  free  use  of  excommunication.^ 

These  last  two  clauses  point  to  matters  which  had  long  been 
special  grievances  of  the  faithful  and  which  demand  a  moment's 
attention.  The  superior  administrative  abihties  of  the  Jews 
caused  them  to  be  constantly  sought  for  executive  positions,  to 
the  scandal  of  all  good  Christians.  We  have  seen  that  under  the 
Goths  it  was  an  abuse  calling  for  constant  animadversion.  It  was 
one  of  the  leading  complaints  of  Innocent  III  against  Raymond 
VI  of  Toulouse,  which  he  expiated  so  cruelly  in  the  Albigensian 
crusades,  and  one  of  the  decrees  of  the  Lateran  council  was 
directed  against  its  continuance.'    In  Spain  the  sovereigns  could 

^  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  561-5. 

»  Concil.  Vallisolet.  ann.  1322,  cap.  xxii  (Aguirre,  V,  250). 
'  Innocent.  PP.  Ill,  Regest.  x,  69;  xii,  post  Epist.  107.— Concil.  Lateran.  IV, 
cap.  Ixix  (cap.  16,  Extra,  v,  vi). 


74  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

not  do  without  them,  and  we  shall  have  occasion  to  see  that  it 
became  one  of  the  main  causes  of  popular  dislike  of  the  unfortu- 
nate race,  for  the  Christian  found  it  hard  to  bear  with  equanimity 
the  domination  of  the  Jew,  especially  in  his  ordinary  character  of 
almojarife,  or  tax-collector.  As  early  as  1118,  Alfonso  VIII,  in 
the  fuero  granted  to  Toledo,  promised  that  no  Jew  or  recent  con- 
vert should  be  placed  over  the  Christians;  Alfonso  X  made  the 
same  concession  in  the  fuero  of  AHcante,  in  1252,  except  that  he 
reserved  the  office  of  almojarife,  and  in  the  Partidas  he  endeav- 
ored to  make  the  rule  general/  The  same  necessity  made  itself 
felt  with  regard  to  the  function  of  the  physician,  for  which,  during 
the  dark  ages,  the  learning  of  Jew  and  Saracen  rendered  them 
almost  exclusively  fitted.  Zedechias,  the  Jewish  physician  of  the 
Emperor  Charles  the  Bald,  was  renowned,  and  tradition  handed 
down  his  name  as  that  of  a  skilful  magician.'  Prince  and  prelate 
alike  sought  comfort  in  their  curative  ministrations,  and,  as  the 
Church  looked  askance  on  the  practice  of  medicine  and  surgery 
by  ecclesiastics,  unless  it  were  through  prayer  and  exorcism,  they 
had  the  field  almost  to  themselves.  This  had  always  been 
regarded  with  disfavor  by  the  Church.  As  early  as  706  the  council 
of  Constantinople  had  ordered  the  faithful  not  to  take  medicine 
from  a  Jew,  and  this  command  had  been  incorporated  in  the 
canon  law.^  Another  rule,  adopted  from  the  Lateran  council  of 
1216,  was  that  the  first  duty  of  a  physician  was  to  care  for  the 
soul  of  the  patient  rather  than  for  his  body,  and  to  see  that  he  was 
provided  with  a  confessor — a  duty  which  the  infidel  could  scarce 
be  expected  to  recognize."  It  is  therefore  easy  to  understand  why 
the  general  abhorrence  of  the  Church  for  Moor  and  Jew  should  be 
sharpened  with  peculiar  acerbity  in  regard  to  their  functions  as 
physicians;  why  the  council  of  Valladolid  should  endeavor  to 
alarm  the  people  with  the  assertion  that  they  utilized  the  position 
to  slay  the  faithful,  and  the  council  of  Salamanca,  in  1335,  should 
renew  the  sentence  of  excommunication  on  all  who  should  employ 
them  in  sickness.^    Nominally  the  Church  carried  its  point,  and 

*  Ferndndez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  289. — Coleccion  de  Privilegios,  VI,  97. — Partidas, 
P.  VII,  Tit.  xxiv,  ley  3. 

2  Annal.  Novesiens.  ann.  846  (Martene  Ampliss.  Collect.  IV,  538).     Cf.  Gest. 
Episc.  Leodiens.  Lib.  ii,  cap.  41.— Hist.  Treverens.  (D'Achery  Spicileg.  II,  222). 
»  Concil.  Quinisext.  cap.  xi.— Gratian.  cap.  13,  Caus.  xxviii,  Q.  1. 

*  Cap.  13,  Extra,  v,  xxxviii. 

»  Concil.  Salmanticens.  ann.  1335,  cap.  xii  (Aguirre,  V,  269). 


Chap.  II]  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CHURCH  75 

in  the  proscriptive  laws  of  1412  there  was  embodied  a  provision 
imposing  a  fine  of  three  hundred  maravedis  on  any  Moor  or  Jew 
who  should  visit  a  Christian  in  sickness  or  administer  medicine  to 
him/  but  the  prohibition  was  impossible  of  enforcement.  About 
1462,  the  Franciscan,  Alonso  de  Espina,  bitterly  complains  that 
there  is  not  a  noble  or  a  prelate  but  keeps  a  Jewish  devil  as  a 
physician,  although  the  zeal  of  the  Jews  in  studying  medicine  is 
simply  to  obtain  an  opportunity  of  exercising  their  malignity 
upon  Christians;  for  one  whom  they  cure  they  slay  fifty,  and 
when  they  are  gathered  together  they  boast  as  to  which  has 
caused  the  most  deaths,  for  their  law  commands  them  to  spoil 
and  slay  the  faithful.^  It  was  but  a  few  years  after  this  that 
Abiatar  Aben  Crescas,  chief  physician  of  Juan  II  of  Aragon,  the 
father  of  Ferdinand,  vindicated  Jewish  science  by  successfully 
relieving  his  royal  patient  of  a  double  cataract  and  restoring  his 
sight.  On  September  11,  1469,  pronouncing  the  aspect  of  the 
stars  to  be  favorable,  he  operated  on  the  right  eye;  the  king, 
delighted  with  his  recovered  vision,  ordered  him  to  proceed  with 
the  left,  but  Abiatar  refused,  alleging  that  the  stars  had  become 
unfavorable,  and  it  was  not  until  October  12  that  he  consented 
to  complete  the  cure,^  The  friars  themselves  believed  as  little  as 
royalty  in  the  stories  which  they  invented  to  frighten  the  people 
and  create  abhorrence  of  Jewish  physicians.  In  spite  of  the  fact 
that  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  in  the  Ordenanzas  of  1480,  repeated 
the  prohibition  of  their  attending  Christians,  the  Dominicans,  in 
1489,  obtained  from  Innocent  IV  permission  to  employ  them,  not- 
withstanding all  ecclesiastical  censures,  the  reason  alleged  being 
that  in  Spain  there  were  few  others.* 

The  proscriptive  spirit  which  dominated  the  councils  of  Zamora 
and  Valladolid  was  not  allowed  to  die  out.  That  of  Tarragona,  in 
1329,  expressed  its  horror  at  the  friendly  companionship  with 
which  Christians  were  in  the  habit  of  attending  the  marriages, 
funerals  and  circumcisions  of  Jews  and  Moors  and  even  of  entering 
into  the  bonds  of  compaternity  with  the  parents  at  the  latter 

'  Ordenamieiito  de  Dona  Catalina,  n.  10. 

^  Fortalicium  Fidei,  fol.  147a  (Ed.  1494). 

'  Mariana,  Hist,  de  Espana,  VIII,  69  (Ed.  1790). 

*  Ordenanzas  Reales,  viii,  iii,  18. — Ripoll  BuUar.  Ord.  FF.  Praedic.  IV,  44. 
As  recently  as  1580  Gregory  XIII  recited  the  prohibitions  of  employing  Jewish 
physicians  uttered  by  Paul  IV  and  Pius  V  and  deplored  their  inobservance  which 
precipitated  many  souls  to  damnation,  to  prevent  which  he  ordered  their  strict 
enforcement. — Septimi  Decretal.  Lib.  in,  Tit.  vi,  cap.  2, 


76  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

ceremony,  all  of  which  it  strictly  forbade  for  the  future.^  A  few 
years  later,  in  1337,  Arnaldo,  Archbishop  of  Tarragona,  addressed 
to  Benedict  XII  a  letter  which  is  a  significant  expression  of  the 
objects  and  methods  of  the  Church.  In  spite,  he  says,  of  the 
vow  taken  by  Jaime  I  when  about  to  conquer  Valencia,  that  he 
would  not  permit  any  Moors  to  remain  there,  the  Christians,  led 
by  blind  cupidity,  allow  them  to  occupy  the  land,  believing  that 
thus  they  derive  larger  revenues — which  is  an  error,  as  the  Abbot 
of  Poblet  has  recently  demonstrated  by  expelling  the  Mudejares 
from  the  possessions  of  the  abbey.  There  are  said  to  be  forty  or 
fifty  thousand  Moorish  fighting  men  in  Valencia,  which  is  a  source 
of  the  greatest  danger,  especially  now  when  the  Emperor  of 
Morocco  is  preparing  to  aid  the  King  of  Granada.  Besides,  many 
enormous  crimes  are  committed  by  Christians,  in  consequence  of 
their  damnable  familiarity  and  intercourse  with  the  Moors,  who 
blaspheme  the  name  of  Christ  and  exalt  that  of  Mahomet.  "I 
have  heard,"  he  pursues,  "the  late  Bishop  of  Valencia  declare,  in 
a  public  sermon,  that  in  that  province  the  mosques  are  more 
numerous  than  the  churches  and  that  half,  or  more  than  half,  the 
people  are  ignorant  of  the  Lord's  prayer  and  speak  only  Moorish. 
I  therefore  pray  your  clemency  to  provide  an  appropriate  remedy, 
which  would  seem  impossible  unless  the  Moors  are  wholly  expelled 
and  unless  the  King  of  Aragon  lends  his  aid  and  favor.  The  nobles 
would  be  more  readily  brought  to  assent  to  this  if  they  were 
allowed  to  seize  and  sell  the  persons  and  property  of  the  Mude- 
jares as  public  enemies  and  infidels,  and  the  money  thus  obtained 
would  be  of  no  small  service  in  defending  the  kingdom."  The 
Christian  prelate,  not  content  with  directly  asking  the  pope  to 
adopt  this  inhuman  proposition,  sent  a  copy  of  his  letter  to  Jean 
de  Comminges,  Cardinal  of  Porto,  and  begged  him  to  urge  the 
matter  with  Benedict,  and  in  a  second  letter  to  the  cardinal  he 
explained  that  it  would  be  necessary  for  the  pope  to  order  the 
king  to  expel  the  Moors;  that  he  would  willingly  obey  as  to  the 
crown  lands,  but  that  a  papal  command  was  indispensable  as  to 
the  lands  of  others.  It  was  only,  he  added,  the  avarice  of  the 
Christians  which  kept  the  Moors  there. ^  We  shall  see  how,  two 
hundred  and  seventy  years  later,  an  Archbishop  of  Valencia 
aided  in  bringing  about  the  final  catastrophe,  by  a  still  greater 

»  Concil.  Tarraconens.  ann.  1329  (Aguirre,  VI,  371). 

*  Aguirre,  V,  286-7.     Pedro  el  Ceremonioso,  the  King  of  Aragon,  was  then 
only  a  boy  of  eighteen,  who  had  ascended  the  throne  in  January,  1336. 


Chap.  II]  REPRESSIVE  LEGISLATION  77 

display  of  saintly  zeal,  backed  by  precisely  the  same  argu- 
ments. 

This  constant  pressure  on  the  part  of  their  spiritual  guides 
began  to  make  an  impression  on  the  ruUng  classes,  and  repressive 
legislation  becomes  frequent  in  the  Cortes.  In  those  of  Soria,  in 
1380,  the  obnoxious  prayer  against  Christians  was  ordered  to  be 
removed  from  Jewish  prayer-books  and  its  recitation  was  for- 
bidden under  heavy  penalties,  while  the  rabbis  were  deprived  of 
jurisdiction  in  criminal  cases  between  their  people.  In  those  of 
Valladohd,  in  1385,  Christians  were  forbidden  to  live  among  Jews, 
Jews  were  prohibited  to  serve  as  tax-collectors,  their  judges  were 
inhibited  to  act  in  civil  cases  between  them  and  Christians  and 
numerous  regulations  were  adopted  to  restrain  their  oppression 
of  debtors.^  In  1387,  at  the  Cortes  of  Briviesca,  Juan  I  enacted 
that  no  Christian  should  keep  in  his  house  a  Jew  or  Moor,  except 
as  a  slave,  nor  converse  with  one  beyond  what  the  law  allowed, 
under  the  heavy  penalty  of  6000  maravedis,  and  no  Jew  or  Moor 
should  keep  Christians  in  his  house  under  pain  of  confiscation  of 
all  property  and  corporal  punishment  at  the  king's  pleasure.^  It 
seemed  impossible  to  enforce  these  laws,  and  the  Church  inter- 
vened by  assuming  jurisdiction  over  the  matter.  In  1388  the 
council  of  Valencia  required  the  suspension  of  labor  on  Sundays 
and  feast-days,  and  it  deplored  the  injury  to  the  bodies  and  souls 
of  the  faithful  and  the  scandals  arising  from  the  habitual  inter- 
course between  them  and  the  infidels.  The  dwellings  of  the  latter 
were  ordered  to  be  strictly  separated  from  those  of  the  former; 
where  special  quarters  had  not  been  assigned  to  them,  it  was 
ordered  to  be  done  forthwith  and,  within  two  months,  no  Chris- 
tian should  be  found  dwelling  with  them  nor  they  with  Christians. 
If  they  had  trades  to  work  at  or  merchandise  to  sell  they  could 
come  out  during  the  day,  or  occupy  booths  or  shops  along  the 
streets,  but  at  night  they  must  return  to  the  place  where  they 
kept  their  wives  and  children.^ 

This  segregation  of  the  Jews  and  Moors  and  their  strict  con- 
finement to  the  Morerias  and  Juderias  were  a  practical  method 
of  separating  the  races  which  was  difficult  of  enforcement.  The 
massacres  of  1391  showed  that  there  were  such  quarters  generally 
in  the  larger  cities,  but  residence  therein  seems  not  to  have  been 

*  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  II,  311,  322-8. 

*  Ordenanzas  Reales,  viii,  iii,  6. 

»  Concil.  Palentin.  ann.  1388,  cap.  v,  vi  (Aguirre,  V,  300). 


78  THE  JEWS  ANU  THE  MOORS  [Book  I 

obligatory,  and  Jews  and  Moors  who  desired  it  lived  among  the 
Christians.  In  the  restrictive  laws  of  1412,  the  first  place  is  given 
to  this  matter.  Morerias  and  Juderias  are  ordered  to  be  estab- 
lished everywhere,  surrounded  with  a  wall  having  only  one  gate. 
Any  one  who  shall  not,  in  eight  days  after  notice,  have  settled 
therein  forfeits  all  his  property  and  is  liable  to  punishment  at  the 
king's  pleasure,  and  severe  penalties  are  provided  for  Christian 
women  who  enter  them.^  An  effort  was  made  to  enforce  these 
regulations,  but  it  seemed  impossible  to  keep. the  races  apart.  In 
1480  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  state  that  the  law  had  not  been 
observed  and  order  its  enforcement,  allowing  two  years  for  the 
establishment  of  the  ghettos,  after  which  no  Jew  or  Moor  shall 
dwell  outside  of  them,  under  the  established  penalties,  and  no 
Christian  woman  be  found  within  them.^  The  time  had  passed  for 
laws  to  be  disregarded  and  this  was  carried  into  effect  with  the 
customary  vigor  of  the  sovereigns.  In  Segovia,  for  instance,  on 
October  29,  1481,  Rodrigo  Alvarez  Maldonado,  commissioner  for 
the  purpose,  summoned  the  representatives  of  the  Jewish  aljama, 
read  to  them  the  Ordenanza,  and  designated  to  them  the  limits 
of  their  Juderia.  All  Christians  resident  therein  were  warned  to 
vacate  within  the  period  designated  by  the  law;  all  Jews  of  the 
district  were  required  to  make  their  abode  there  within  the  same 
time,  and  all  doors  and  windows  of  houses  contiguous  to  the 
boundaries,  on  either  side,  whether  of  Jews  or  Christians,  were 
ordered  to  be  walled  up  or  rendered  impassable.  The  segregation 
of  the  Jews  was  to  be  absolute.^ 

We  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter  how  successful  were  the  efforts 
of  the  Church  in  arousing  the  greed  and  fanaticism  of  the  people 
and  in  repressing  the  kindly  fellowship  which  had  so  long  existed. 
From  this  the  Jews  were  the  earliest  and  greatest  sufferers,  and 
it  is  necessary  here  to  say  only  that  in  the  cruel  laws  which  marked 
the  commencement  of  the  fifteenth  century  both  Moor  and  Jew 
were  included  in  the  restrictions  designed  to  humiliate  them  to 
the  utmost,  to  render  their  lives  a  burden,  to  deprive  them  of  the 


•  Ordenamiento  de  Valladolid,  i,  xi  (Fortalicium  Fidei,  fol.  176). — Femdndez 
y  Gonzdlez,  pp.  400,  402. 

^  Ordenanzas  Reales,  viii,  iii,  10,  19. 

»  Padre  Fidel  Fita,  Boletin,  IX,  270-84,  289,  292.— It  was  not  until  1555  that 
Paul  IV  adopted  the  same  policy  in  Rome  and  established  the  Ghetto,  or  Jewish 
quarter. — ^Septimi  Decretal.  Lib.  v,  Tit.  1,  cap.  4 


Chap.  II]  REPRESSIVE  LEGISLATION  79 

means  of  livelihood  and  to  diminish  their  usefulness  to  the  State. 
These  laws  were  too  severe  for  strict  and  continuous  enforcement, 
but  they  answered  the  purpose  of  inflicting  an  ineffaceable  stigma 
upon  their  victims  and  of  keeping  up  a  wholesome  feeling  of  antag- 
onism on  the  part  of  the  population  at  large.  This  was  directed 
principally  against  the  Jews,  who  were  the  chief  objects  of  clerical 
malignity,  and  it  will  be  our  business  to  examine  how  this  was 
skilfully  developed,  until  it  became  the  proximate  cause  of  the 
introduction  of  the  Inquisition  and  created  for  it,  during  its 
earliest  and  busiest  years,  almost  the  sole  field  of  its  activity. 
Meanwhile  it  may  be  observed  that,  in  the  closing  triumph  over 
Granada,  the  capitulations  accorded  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
were  even  more  liberal  to  Jews  and  Moors  than  those  granted 
from  the  eleventh  to  the  thirteenth  century,  by  such  monarchs 
as  Alfonso  VI,  Ferdinand  III,  Alfonso  X,  and  Jaime  I.  Unless 
they  were  deliberately  designed  as  perfidious  traps,  they  show 
how  little  real  conscientious  conviction  lay  behind  the  elaborately 
stimulated  fanaticism  which  destroyed  the  Jews  and  Mudejares.* 


*  For  a  series  of  these  capitulations  see  Coleccion  de  Documentos  para  la 
Historia  de  Espafia,  T.  VIII,  pp.  403  sqq. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS. 

To  appreciate  properly  the  position  of  the  Jews  in  Spain,  it 
is  requisite  first  to  understand  the  light  in  which  they  were 
regarded  elsewhere  throughout  Christendom  during  the  medie- 
val period.  It  has  already  been  seen  that  the  Church  held  the 
Jew  to  be  a  being  deprived,  by  the  guilt  of  his  ancestors,  of  all 
natural  rights  save  that  of  existence.  The  privileges  accorded 
to  the  Jews  and  the  social  equality  to  which  they  were  admitted 
under  the  Carlovingians  provoked  the  severest  animadver- 
sions of  the  churchmen.*  About  890,  Stephen  VI  writes  to 
the  Archbishop  of  Narbonne  that  he  has  heard  with  mortal 
anxiety  that  these  enemies  of  God  are  allowed  to  hold  land 
and  that  Christians  dealt  with  these  dogs  and  even  rendered 
service  to  them.^  It  is  true  that  Alexander  III  maintained  the 
ancient  rule  that  they  could  repair  their  existing  synagogues 
but  not  build  new  ones,  and  Clement  III  honored  himself  by 
one  of  the  rare  human  utterances  in  their  favor,  prohibiting 
their  forced  conversion,  their  murder  or  wounding  or  spolia- 
tion, their  deprivation  of  religious  observances,  the  exaction 
of  forced  service  unless  such  was  customary,  or  the  violation 
of  their  cemeteries  in  search  of  treasure,  and,  moreover,  both 
of  these  decrees  were  embodied  by  Gregory  IX  in  the  canon 
law.'  Yet  these  prohibitions  only  point  out  to  us  the  manner 
in  which  popular  zeal  applied  the  principles  enunciated  by  the 
Church  and,  when  the  council  of  Paris,  in  1212,  forbade,  under 
pain  of  excommunication.  Christian  midwives  to  attend  a  Jewess 
in  labor,  it  shows  that  they  were  authoritatively  regarded  as 
less  entitled  than  beasts  to  human  sympathy.^ 

How  popular  hostility  was  aroused  and  strengthened  is  illus- 
trated in  a  letter  addressed,  in  1208,  by  Innocent  III  to  the  Count 


*  S.  Agobardi  de  Judaicis  Superstitionibus ;   Ejusdem  de  cavenda  Societate 
Judaica. — Amulonis  Episc.  Lugdunens.  Lib.  contra  Judseos  ad  Carolem  Regem. 

'  Stephani  PP.  VI,  Epist.  2.  '  Cap.  7,  9,  Extra,  Lib.  v.  Tit.  vi. 

*  Concil.  Paris,  ann.  1212,  P.  v,  cap.  2  fMartene  Ampliss.  Collect.  VII,  102). 

6  (81) 


82  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

of  Nevers.  Although,  he  says,  the  Jews,  against  whom  the 
blood  of  Jesus  Christ  cries  aloud,  are  not  to  be  slain,  lest  Chris- 
tians should  forget  the  divine  law,  yet  are  they  to  be  scattered 
as  wanderers  over  the  earth,  that  their  faces  may  be  filled  with 
ignominy  and  they  may  seek  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ.  Blas- 
phemers of  the  Christian  name  are  not  to  be  cherished  by  princes, 
in  oppression  of  the  servants  of  the  Lord,  but  are  rather  to  be 
repressed  with  servitude,  of  which  they  rendered  themselves 
worthy  when  they  laid  sacrilegious  hands  on  Him,  who  had 
come  to  give  them  true  freedom,  and  they  cried  that  His  blood 
should  be  upon  them  and  their  children.  Yet  when  prelates 
and  priests  intervene  to  crush  their  malice,  they  laugh  at  excom- 
munication and  nobles  are  found  who  protect  them.  The  Count 
of  Nevers  is  said  to  be  a  defender  of  the  Jews;  if  he  does  not 
dread  the  cUvine  wrath.  Innocent  threatens  to  lay  hands  on 
him  and  punish  his  cUsobedience.^  The  Cistercian  Caesarius  of 
Heisterbach,  in  his  dialogues  for  the  moral  instruction  of  his 
fellow  monks,  tells  several  stories  which  illustrate  the  utter 
contempt  felt  for  the  feeUngs  and  rights  of  Jews,  and  in  one  of 
them  there  is  an  allusion  to  the  curious  popular  belief  that  the 
Jews  had  a  vile  odor,  which  they  lost  in  baptism — a  belief  pro- 
longed, at  least  in  Spain,  until  the  seventeenth  century  was 
well  advanced.^  Even  so  enlightened  a  prelate  as  Cardinal 
Pierre  d'Ailly,  in  1416,  reproves  the  sovereigns  of  Christendom 
for  their  liberality  towards  the  Jews,  which  he  can  attribute 
only  to  the  vile  love  of  gain;  if  Jews  are  allowed  to  remain,  it 
should  be  only  as  servants  to  Christians.^  General  prohibitions 
of  maltreatment  availed  little  when  prelate  and  priest  were 
busy  in  inflaming  popular  aversion  and  popes  were  found  to 
threaten  any  prince  hardy  enough  to  interpose  and  protect  the 
unfortunate  race. 

Of  course  under  such  impulsion  there  was  scant  ceremony 
in  dealing  with  these  outcasts  in  any  way  that  religious  ardor 
might  suggest.     When,  in  1009,  the  Saracens  captured  Jerusa- 

»  Innocent.  PP.  Ill,  Regest.  x,  190.  Cf.  Epistt.  Select.  Saec.  XIII,  T.  I,  p.' 
414  (Pertz). 

^  Ca?sar.  Heisterb.  Dial.  Mirac.  Dist.  ii,  cap.  xxiv,  xxv. — ^'Bemaldez,  Hist,  de 
los  Reyes  Catolicos,  cap.  xliii. — Vicente  da  Costa  Mattos,  Breve  Discurso  contra 
a  heretica  Perfidia  do  Judaismo,  fol.  131,  132,  134  (Lisboa,  1623). — Bodleian 
Library,  MSS.  Arch.  S.  130. 

^  P.  de  Alliaco  Canon.  Reformat,  cap.  xliii  (Von  der  Hardt,  Concil.  Constant. 
I,  VIII,  430-1) 


Chap.  Ill]  MEDIEVAL  PERSECUTION  83 

lem  and  destroyed  the  church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  the  rage 
and  indignation  of  Europe  assumed  so  threatening  a  form  that 
multitudes  of  Jews  took  refuge  in  baptism/  When  rehgious 
exaltation  culminated  in  the  Crusades,  it  seemed  to  those  who 
assumed  the  cross  a  folly  to  redeem  Palestine  while  leaving 
behind  the  impious  race  that  had  crucified  the  Lord,  and  every- 
where, in  1096,  the  assembling  of  crusaders  was  the  signal  for 
Jewish  massacre.  It  would  be  superfluous  to  recount  in  detail 
the  dreary  catalogue  of  wholesale  slaughters  which  for  centuries 
disgraced  Europe,  whenever  fanaticism  or  the  disappearance 
of  a  child  gave  rise  to  stories  of  the  murder  rite,  or  a  blood- 
stained host  suggested  sacrilege  committed  on  the  sacrament, 
or  some  passing  evil,  such  as  an  epidemic,  aroused  the  populace 
to  bloodshed  and  rapine.  The  medieval  chronicles  are  full  of 
such  terrible  scenes,  in  which  cruelty  and  greed  assumed  the 
cloak  of  zeal  to  avenge  God;  and  when,  in  rare  instances,  the 
authorities  protected  the  defenceless,  it  was  ascribed  to  un- 
worthy motives,  as  in  the  case  of  Johann  von  Kraichbau,  Bishop 
of  Speyer,  who,  in  1096,  not  only  saved  some  Jews  -but  beheaded 
their  assailants  and  was  accused  of  being  heavily  bribed;  nor 
did  Frederic  Barbarossa  and  Ludwig  of  Bavaria  escape  similar 
imputations.^  It  was  safer  and  more  profitable  to  combine 
piety  and  plunder  as  when,  in  April,  1182,  PhiHp  Augustus 
ordered  all  Jews  to  leave  France  by  St.  John's  day,  confiscating 
their  landed  property  and  allowing  them  to  take  their  personal 
effects.  His  grandson,  the  saintly  Louis,  resorted  without 
scruple  to  replenishing  his  treasury  by  ransoming  the  Jews  and 
the  latter's  grandson,  PhiHppe  le  Bel,  was  still  more  unscrupu- 
lous in  1306,  when,  by  a  concerted  movement,  he  seized  all  the 
Jews  in  his  dominions,  stripped  them  of  property,  and  banished 
them  under  pain  of  death.  In  England  King  John,  in  1210, 
cast  Jews  into  prison  and  tortured  them  for  ransom,  and  his 
grandson,  Edward  I,  followed  the  example  of  Philip  Augustus 
so  effectually  that  Jews  were  not  allowed  to  return  until  the 
time  of  Cromwell.^ 

'  Chron.  Turonens.  ann.  1009. 

^  Berthold.  Constant,  ann.  1096. — Otton.  Frisingens.  de  Gest.  Frid.  I,  Lib.  i, 
cap.  37. — Vitoduran.  Chron.  ann.  1336. — Gesta  Treviror.  Archiepp.  ann.  1337. 

^  Rigord.  de  Gest.  Phil.  Aug.  ann.  llcS2  — Vaissette,  Hist.  Gen.  de  Languedoc, 
VIII,  1191-2  (Ed.  Privat).— Nich.  Trivetti  Chron.  ann.  1189.— Guill.  Nangiac. 
Contin.  ann.  1306. — Matt.  Paris.  Hist.  Angl.  ann.  1210. — Matt.  Westmonast. 
ann.  1290. 


84  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

Spain  remained  so  long  isolated  from  the  movements  which 
agitated  the  rest  of  Christendom  that  the  abhorrence  for  the 
Jew,  taught  by  the  Church  and  reduced  to  practice  in  so  many 
ways  by  the  people,  was  late  in  development.  In  the  deluge 
of  the  Saracen  conquest  and  in  the  fierce  struggles  of  the  early 
Reconquest,  the  antipathy  so  savagely  expressed  in  the  Gothic 
legislation  seemed  to  pass  away,  possibly  because  there  could 
have  been  but  few  Jews  among  the  rude  mountaineers  of  Galicia 
and  Asturias.  It  is  true  that  theWisigothic  laws,  in  the  Romance 
version  known  as  the  Fuero  Juzgo,  remained  nominally  in  force ; 
it  is  also  true  that  a  law  was  interpolated  in  the  Fuero,  which 
seems  to  indicate  a  sudden  recrudescence  of  fanaticism  after  a 
long  interval  of  comparative  toleration.  It  provides  that  if  a 
Jew  loyally  embraces  the  faith  of  Christ,  he  shall  have  license 
to  trade  in  all  things  with  Christians,  but  if  he  subsequently 
relapses  into  Judaism  his  person  and  property  are  forfeit  to  the 
king;  Jews  persisting  in  their  faith  shall  not  consort  with  Chris- 
tians, but  may  trade  with  each  other  and  pay  taxes  to  the  king. 
Their  houses -and  slaves  and  lands  and  orchards  and  vineyards, 
which  they  may  have  bought  from  Christians,  even  though 
the  purchase  be  of  old  date,  are  declared  confiscated  to  the  king, 
who  may  bestow  them  on  whom  he  pleases.  If  any  Jew  trades 
in  violation  of  this  law  he  shall  become  a  slave  of  the  king,  with 
all  his  property.  Christians  shall  not  trade  with  Jews;  if  a  noble 
does  so,  he  shall  forfeit  three  pounds  of  gold  to  the  king;  on 
transactions  of  more  than  two  pounds,  the  excess  is  forfeit  to 
the  king,  together  with  three  doblas;  if  the  offender  is  a  com- 
moner, he  shall  receive  three  hundred  lashes.^ 

The  date  of  this  law  is  uncertain,  but  it  presupposes  a  con- 
siderable anterior  period  of  toleration,  during  which  Jews  had 
multiplied  and  had  become  possessed  of  landed  wealth.  To 
what  extent  it  may  have  been  enforced  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing,  but  its  observance  must  only  have  been  temporary, 
for  such  glimpses  as  we  get  of  the  condition  of  the  Jews  up  to 
the  fourteenth  century  are  wholly  incompatible  with  the  fierce 
proscription  of  the  Gothic  laws.  As  the  Spanish  kingdoms 
organized  themselves,  the  Fuero  Juzgo  for  the  most  part  was 
superseded  by  a  crowd  of  local  fueros,  cartas-pueblas  and  cus- 
toms defining  the  franchises  of  each  community,  and  we  have 
seen  in  the  preceding  chapter  how  in  these  both  Moor  and  Jew 

*  Fuero  Juzgo,  Lib,  xii,  Tit.  ii,  ley  18. 


Chap.  Ill]  CONDITION  OF  SPANISH  JEWS  85 

were  recognized  as  sharing  in  the  common  rights  of  citizenship 
and  how  fully  the  freedom  of  trade  between  all  classes  was 
permitted.  In  1251  the  Fuero  Juzgo  was  formally  abrogated 
in  Aragon  by  Jaime  I,  who  forbade  it  to  be  cited  in  the  courts 
— a  measure  which  infers  that  it  had  practically  become  obsolete.^ 
In  Castile  it  lingered  somewhat  longer  and  traces  of  its  exist- 
ence are  to  be  found  in  some  places  until  the  end  of  the  thir- 
teenth century.^  These,  however,  are  not  to  be  construed  as 
referring  to  the  provisions  respecting  Jews,  which  had  long  been 
superseded. 

In  fact,  the  Jews  formed  too  large  and  important  a  portion 
of  the  population  to  be  treated  without  consideration.  The 
sovereigns,  involved  permanently  in  struggles  with  the  Saracen 
and  with  mutinous  nobles,  found  it  necessary  to  utilize  all  the 
resources  at  their  command,  whether  in  money,  intelligence, 
or  mihtary  service.  In  the  first  two  of  these  the  Jews  stood 
pre-eminent,  nor  were  they  remiss  in  the  latter.  On  the  disas- 
trous field  of  Zalaca,  in  1086,  forty  thousand  Jews  are  said  to 
have  followed  the  banner  of  Alfonso  VI,  and  the  slaughter  they 
endured  proved  their  devotion,  while,  at  the  defeat  of  Ucles  in 
1108,  they  composed  nearly  the  whole  left  wing  of  the  Castilian 
host.^  In  1285  we  hear  of  Jews  and  Moors  aiding  the  Aragonese 
in  their  assaults  on  the  retreating  forces  of  Philippe  le  Hardi.^ 
As  regards  money,  the  traffic  and  finance  of  Spain  were  largely 
in  their  hands,  and  they  furnished,  with  the  Moors,  the  readiest 
source  from  which  to  derive  revenue.  Every  male  who  had 
married,  or  who  had  reached  the  age  of  20,  paid  an  annual  poll 
tax  of  three  gold  maravedis;  there  were  also  a  number  of  im- 
posts peculiar  to  them,  and,  in  addition,  they  shared  with  the 
rest  of  the  population  in  the  complicated  and  ruinous  system 
of  taxation — the  ordinary  and  extraorchnary  servicios,  the  pedi- 
das  and  ayudas,  the  sacos  and  pastos  and  the  alcavalas.  Besides 
this  they  assisted  in  supporting  the  municipalities  or  the  lord- 
ships and  prelacies  under  which  they  lived,  with  the  tallas,  the 
pastos,  the  ninths  or  elevenths  of  merchandise  and  the  peajes 
and  barcajes,  the  pontazgos  and  portazgos,  or  tolls  of  various  kind^ 

^  Marca  Hispanica,  p.  1439. 

*  Coleccion  de  Pri\'ilegios,  "VT,  96  (Madrid,  1833). — Memorial  hist,  espanol,  I, 
38,  124;  II,  71. 

3  Amador  de  los  Rios,  I,  185-6,  189. 

*  Contin.  Gerardi  de  Fracheto,  ann.  1285  (Dom  Bouquet,  XXI,  7). 


86  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

which  were  heavier  on  them  than  on  Christians,  and,  moreover, 
the  Church  received  from  them  the  customary  tithes,  oblations, 
and  first-fruits.^  The  revenues  from  the  Jewish  aljamas,  or  com- 
munities, were  always  regarded  as  among  the  surest  resources 
of  the  crown. 

The  shrewd  inteUigence  and  practical  ability  of  the  Jews, 
moreover,  rendered  their  services  in  public  affairs  almost  indis- 
pensable. It  was  in  vain  that  the  council  of  Rome,  in  1078, 
renewed  the  old  prohibitions  to  confide  to  them  functions 
which  would  place  them  in  command  over  Christians  and  equally 
in  vain  that,  in  1081,  Gregory  VII  addressed  to  Alfonso  VI  a 
vehement  remonstrance  on  the  subject,  assuring  him  that  to 
do  so  was  to  oppress  the  Church  of  God  and  exalt  the  synagogue 
of  Satan,  and  that  in  seeking  to  please  the  enemies  of  Christ  he 
was  contemning  Christ  himself.^  In  fact,  the  most  glorious 
centuries  of  the  Reconquest  were  those  in  which  the  Jews  en- 
joyed the  greatest  power  in  the  courts  of  kings,  prelates  and 
nobles,  in  Castile  and  Aragon.  The  treasuries  of  the  kingdoms 
were  virtually  in  their  hands,  and  it  was  their  skill  in  organizing 
the  supplies  that  rendered  practicable  the  enterprises  of  such 
monarchs  as  Alfonso  VI  and  VII,  Fernando  III  and  Jaime  I.^ 
To  treat  them  as  the  Goths  had  done,  or  as  the  Church  pre- 
scribed, had  become  a  manifest  impossibility. 

Under  such  circumstances  it  was  natural  that  their  numbers 
should  increase  until  they  formed  a  notable  portion  of  the  popu- 
lation. Of  this  an  estimate  can  be  made  from  a  repartimiento, 
or  assessment  of  taxes,  in  1284,  which  shows  that  in  Castile 
they  paid  a  poll  tax  of  2,561,855  gold  maravedis,  which  at  three 
maravedis  per  head  infers  a  total  of  853,951  married  or  adult 
males.*  This  large  aggregate  was  thoroughly  organized.  Each 
aljama  or  community  had  its  rabbis  with  a  Rabb  Mayor  at  its 


'  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  67. — Benavides,  Memorias  de  Fernando  TV,  II,  331. 

It  indicates  the  independent  position  of  Jews  and  Moors  that  they  refused  to 
pay  tithes  on  lands  acquired  from  Christians  and  their  liability  was  enforced  only 
after  a  vigorous  and  prolonged  struggle. — See  Cap.  IS,  Extra,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  xix 
(Concil.  Lateran.  IV). — Innocent.  PP.  Ill,  Regest.  viii,  50;  x,  61. — Concil 
Tarraconens.  ann.  1291  (Aguirre,  VI,  292). — Concil.  Zamorens.  ann.  1313,  cap.  x 
(Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  564). — Memorial  hist,  espanol,  I,  33,  160. — Fernandez 
y  Gonzalez,  pp.  348,  355,  380,  389.— Benavides,  op.  cit.  II,  539,  541. 

2  Concil.  Roman.  V,  ann.  1078  (Migne's  Patrologia,  CXLVIII,  799).— Gregor. 
PP.  VII,  Regest.  ix,  2. 

'  Amador  de  los  Rios,  I,  28-9.  *  Iljidem,  II,  58. 


Chap.  Ill]  CONDITION  OF  SPANISH  JEWS  87 

head.  Then  each  district,  comprising  one  or  more  Christian 
bishoprics,  was  presided  over  by  a  Rabb  Mayor,  and,  above  all, 
was  the  Gaon  or  Nassi,  the  prince,  whose  duty  it  was  to  see  that 
the  laws  of  the  race,  both  civil  and  religious,  were  observed  in 
their  purity/  As  we  have  already  seen,  all  questions  between 
themselves  were  settled  before  their  own  judges  under  their 
own  code,  and  even  when  a  Jew  was  prosecuted  criminally  by 
the  king,  he  was  punishable  in  accordance  with  his  own  law.^ 
So  complete  was  the  respect  paid  to  this  that  their  Sabbaths 
and  other  feasts  were  held  inviolate;  on  these  days  they  could 
not  be  summoned  to  court  or  be  interfered  with  except  by  arrest 
for  crime.  Even  polygamy  was  allowed  to  them.^ 
"  While  their  religion  and  laws  were  thus  respected,  they  were 
required  to  respect  Christianity.  They  were  not  allowed  to 
read  or  keep  books  contrary  to  their  own  law  or  to  the  Christian 
law.  Proselytism  from  Christianity  was  punishable  by  death 
and  confiscation,  and  any  insults  offered  to  God,  the  Virgin,  or 
the  saints,  were  visited  with  a  fine  of  ten  maravedis  or  a  hun- 
dred lashes.^  Yet,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  indignant  Lucas  of 
Tuy,  writing  about  1230,  these  simple  restraints  were  scarce 
enforced.  The  heretic  Cathari  of  Leon,  he  tells  us,  were  wont  to 
circumcise  themselves  in  order,  under  the  guise  of  Jews,  to 
propound  heretical  dogmas  and  dispute  with  Christians;  what 
they  dared  not  utter  as  heretics  they  could  freely  disseminate 
as  Jews.  The  governors  and  judges  of  the  cities  listened  approv- 
ingly to  heresies  put  forth  by  Jews,  who  were  their  friends  and 
familiars,  and  if  any  one,  inflamed  by  pious  zeal,  angered  these 
Jews,  he  was  treated  as  if  he  had  touched  the  apple  of  the  eye 
of  the  ruler;  they  also  taught  other  Jews  to  blaspheme  Christ 
and  thus  the  Catholic  faith  was  perverted.^ 

This  represents  a  laxity  of  toleration  impossible  in  any  other 
land  at  the  period,  yet  the  Spanish  Jews  were  not  wholly  shielded 
from  inroads  of  foreign  fanaticism.  Before  the  crusading  spirit 
had  been  organized  for  the  conquest  of  the  Holy  Land,  ardent 
knights  sometimes  came  to  wage  war  with  the  Spanish  Saracens, 


1  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  74-5.  ==  Leyes  de  Estilo,  89-90. 

^  El  Fuero  Real,  Lib.  iv,  Tit.  iv,  ley  7. — Partidas,  vii,  xxiv,  5.  In  1322  Jaime 
II  of  Aragon  forbids  the  molestation  of  Strogo  Mercadell,  a  Jew,  for  taking  a 
second  wife. — Coleccion  de  Documentos  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  VI,  240. 

*  El  Fuero  Real,  Lib.  iv,  Tit.  ii,  leyes  1,  2,  3. 

*  Lucae  Tudens.  de  altera  Vita  iii,  3. 


88  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

and  their  religious  fervor  was  aggrieved  by  the  freedom  en- 
joyed by  the  Jews.  About  1068,  bands  of  these  strangers  treated 
them  as  they  had  been  wont  to  do  at  home,  slaying  and  plun- 
dering them  without  mercy.  The  Church  of  Spain  was  as  yet 
uncontaminated  by  race  hatred  and  the  bishops  interposed  to 
save  the  victims.  For  this  they  were  warmly  praised  by  Alex- 
ander II,  who  denounced  the  crusaders  as  acting  either  from 
foolish  ignorance  or  blind  cupidity.  Those  whom  they  would 
slay,  he  said,  were  perhaps  predestined  by  God  to  salvation; 
he  cited  Gregory  I  to  the  same  effect  and  pointed  out  the  differ- 
ence between  Jews  and  Saracens,  the  latter  of  whom  make  war 
on  Christians  and  could  justly  be  assailed.^  Had  the  chair  of 
St,  Peter  always  been  so  worthily  filled,  infinite  misery  might 
have  been  averted  and  the  history  of  Christendom  been  spared 
some  of  its  most  repulsive  pages. 

When  the  crusading  spirit  extended  to  Spain,  it  sometimes 
aroused  similar  tendencies.  In  1108,  Archbishop  Bernardo  of 
Toledo  took  the  cross  and  religious  exaltation  was  ardent.  The 
disastrous  rout  of  Ucles  came  and  was  popularly  ascribed  to 
the  Jews  in  the  Castilian  army,  arousing  indignation  which 
manifested  itself  in  a  massacre  at  Toledo  and  in  the  burning  of 
synagogues.  Alfonso  VI  vainly  endeavored  to  detect  and  pun- 
ish those  responsible  and  his  death,  in  1109,  was  followed  by 
similar  outrages  which  remained  unavenged.^  This  was  a  spo- 
radic outburst  which  soon  exhausted  itself.  A  severer  trial  came 
from  abroad,  when,  in  1210,  the  Legate  Arnaud  of  Narbonne 
led  his  crusading  hosts  to  the  assistance  of  Alfonso  IX.  Al- 
though their  zeal  for  the  faith  was  exhausted  by  the  capture 
of  Calatrava  and  few  of  them  remained  to  share  in  the  crown- 
ing glories  of  Las  Navas  de  Tolosa,  their  ardor  was  sufficient 
to  prompt  an  onslaught  on  the  unoffending  Jews.  The  native 
nobles  sought  in  vain  to  protect  the  victims,  who  were  massa- 
cred without  mercy,  so  that  Abravanel  declares  this  to  have 
been  one  of  the  bloodiest  persecutions  that  they  had  suffered 
and  that  more  Jews  fled  from  Spain  than  Moses  led  out  of  Egypt. ^ 

This  had  no  permanent  influence  on  the  condition  of  the 
Spanish  Hebrews.     During  the  long  reigns  of  San  Fernando  III 

1  Alex.  PP.  II,  Epist.  101  (Decreti  Consid.  xxiii,  Q.  viii,  cap.  11). 

2  Amador  de  los  Rios,  I,  189-90. 

'  Roderici  Toleti  de  Rebus  Hispan.  viii,  2,  6. — Malo,  Histoire  des  Juifs,  p.  267 
(P.aris,   1826). 


Chap.  Ill]  CONDITION  OF  SPANISH  JEWS  89 

and  Alfonso  X  of  Castile  and  of  Jaime  I  of  Aragon,  covering 
the  greater  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  services  which 
they  rendered  to  the  monarchs  were  repaid  with  increasing 
favor  and  protection.  After  Jaime  had  conquered  Minorca 
he  took,  in  1247,  all  Jews  settling  there  under  the  royal  safe- 
guard and  threatened  a  fine  of  a  thousand  gold  pieces  for  wrong 
inflicted  on  any  of  them  and,  in  1250,  he  required  that  Jewish 
as  well  as  Christian  testimony  must  be  furnished  in  all  actions, 
civil  or  criminal,  brought  by  Christians  against  Jews,  So,  when 
in  1306  Philippe  le  Bel  expelled  the  Jews  from  France  and  those 
of  Majorca  feared  the  same  fate,  Jaime  II  reassured  them  by 
pledging  the  royal  faith  that  they  should  remain  forever  in  the 
land,  with  full  security  for  person  and  property,  a  pledge  con- 
firmed, in  1311,  by  his  son  and  successor  Sancho/  In  Castile, 
when  San  Fernando  conquered  Seville,  in  1244,  he  gave  to  the 
Jews  a  large  space  in  the  city,  and,  in  defiance  of  the  canons, 
he  allotted  to  them  four  Moorish  mosques  to  be  converted  into 
synagogues,  thus  founding  the  aljama  of  Seville,  destined  to 
a  history  so  deplorable.  Alfonso  X,  during  his  whole  reign, 
patronized  Jewish  men  of  learning,  whom  he  employed  in  trans- 
lating works  of  value  from  Arabic  and  Hebrew;  he  built  for 
them  an  observatory  in  Seville,  where  were  made  the  records 
embodied  in  the  Alfonsine  Tables;  he  permitted  those  of  Toledo 
to  erect  the  magnificent  synagogue  now  known  as  Santa  Maria 
la  Blanca,  and  Jews  fondly  relate  that  the  Hebrew  school,  which 
he  transferred  from  Cordova  to  Toledo,  numbered  twelve  thou- 
sand students.^  He  was  prompt  to  maintain  their  privileges, 
and,  when  the  Jews  of  Burgos  complained  that  in  mixed  suits 
the  alcaldes  would  grant  appeals  to  him  when  the  Christian 
suitor  was  defeated,  while  refusing  them  to  defeated  Jews,  he 
at  once  put  an  end  to  the  discrimination,  a  decree  which  Sancho 
IV  enforced  with  a  penalty  of  a  hundred  maravedis  when,  in 
1295,  the  complaint  was  repeated.^  Yet  Alfonso,  in  his  systematic 
code  known  as  the  Partidas,  which  was  not  confirmed  by  the 
Cortes  until  1348,  allowed  himself  to  be  influenced  by  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Church  and  the  maxims  of  the  imperial  jurispru- 
dence.    He  accepted  the  doctrine  of  the  canons  that  the  Jew 

*  Villanueva,  Viage  Literario,  XXII,  328,  329,  333. 

'  Amador  de  los  Rios,  I,  370,  447-51.— Lindo's  History  of  the  Jews  of  Spain, 
p.  88. 

5  Leyes  nuevas,  Num.  xii,  xiii.   Cf .  Ley  7  (Alcubilla,  Codigos  antiguos,  I,  182). 


90  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

was  merely  suffered  to  live  in  captivity  among  Christians;  he 
was  forbidden  to  speak  ill  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  any  at- 
tempt at  proselytism  was  punished  with  death  and  confisca- 
tion. The  murder  rite  was  alluded  to  as  a  rumor,  but  in  case 
it  was  practised  it  was  a  capital  offence  and  the  culprits  were 
to  be  tried  before  the  king  himself.  Jews  were  ineligible  to  any 
office  in  which  they  could  oppress  Christians;  they  were  for- 
bidden to  have  Christian  servants,  and  the  purchase  of  a  Chris- 
tian slave  involved  the  death  punishment.  They  were  not  to 
associate  with  Christians  in  eating,  drinking,  and  bathing  and 
the  amour  of  a  Jew  with  a  Christian  woman  incurred  death. 
While  Jewish  physicians  might  prescribe  for  Christian  patients, 
the  medicine  must  be  compounded  by  a  Christian^  and  the 
wearing  of  the  hateful  distinctive  badge  was  ordered  under 
penalty  of  ten  gold  maravedis  or  of  ten  lashes.  At  the  same 
time  Christians  were  strictly  forbidden  to  commit  any  wrong 
on  the  person  or  property  of  Jews  or  to  interfere  in  any  way 
with  their  religious  observances,  and  no  coercion  was  to  be  used 
to  induce  them  to  baptism,  for  Christ  wishes  only  willing  service.^ 
This  was  prophetic  of  evil  days  in  the  future  and  the  reign 
of  Alfonso  proved  to  be  the  culminating  point  of  Jewish  pros- 
perity. The  capital  and  commerce  of  the  land  were  to  a  great 
extent  in  their  hands;  they  managed  its  finances  and  collected 
its  revenues.  King,  noble  and  prelate  entrusted  their  affairs 
to  Jews,  whose  influence  consequently  was  felt  everywhere.  To 
precipitate  them  from  this  position  to  the  servitude  prescribed 
by  the  canons  required  a  prolonged  struggle  and  may  be  said 
to  have  taken  its  remote  origin  in  an  attempt  at  their  conver- 
sion. In  1263  the  Dominican  Fray  Pablo  Christia,  a  converted 
Jew,  challenged  the  greatest  rabbi  of  the  day,  Moseh  aben  Naj- 
man,  to  a  cUsputation  which  was  presided  over  by  Jaime  I  in 
his  Barcelona  palace.  Each  champion  of  course  boasted  of 
victory;  the  king  dismissed  Nachmanides  not  only  with  honor 
but  with  the  handsome  reward  of  three  hundred  pieces  of  gold, 
but  he  ordered  certain  Jewish  books  to  be  burnt  and  blas- 
phemous passages  in  the  Talmud  to  be  expunged.^    He  further 


*  Partidas,  P.  VII,  Tit.  xxiv.  The  provision  punishing  with  death  male  Jews 
for  intercourse  with  Christian  women  only  expressed  existing  legislation,  even 
when  the  woman  was  a  prostitute. — Benavides,  Memorias  de  Fernando  IV,  IT,  210. 

^  Villanueva,  Viage  Literario,  XIII,  332. — R.  Nachmanidis  Disputatio  (Wagen- 
seilii  Tela  Ignea  Satanse). — Coleccion  de  Documentos  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  VI,  165. 


Chap.  Ill]  ATTEMPTS  AT  CONVERSION  9I 

issued  a  decree  ordering  all  his  faithful  Jews  to  assemble  and 
listen  reverently  to  Fray  Pablo  whenever  he  desired  to  dispute 
with  them,  to  furnish  him  with  what  books  he  desired,  and  to 
defray  his  expenses,  which  they  could  deduct  from  their  tribute/ 
Two  years  later  Fray  Pablo  challenged  another  prominent 
Hebrew,  the  Rabbi  Ben-Astruch,  chief  of  the  synagogue  of 
Gerona,  who  refused  until  he  had  the  pledge  of  King  Jaime,  and 
of  the  great  Dominican  St.  Ramon  de  Penafort,  that  he  should 
not  be  held  accountable  for  what  he  might  utter  in  debate,  but 
when,  at  the  request  of  the  Bishop  of  Gerona,  Ben-Astruch 
wrote  out  his  argument,  the  frailes  Pablo  and  Ramon  accused 
him  of  blasphemy,  for  it  was  manifestly  impossible  that  a  Jew 
could  defend  his  strict  monotheism  and  Messianic  belief  without 
a  course  of  reasoning  that  would  appear  blasphemous  to  sus- 
ceptible theologians.  The  rabbi  alleged  the  royal  pledge;  Jaime 
proposed  that  he  should  be  banished  for  two  years  and  his  book 
be  burnt,  but  this  did  not  satisfy  the  Dominican  frailes  and 
he  dismissed  the  matter,  forbidding  the  prosecution  of  the  rabbi 
except  before  himself.  Appeal  seems  to  have  been  made  to 
Clement  IV,  who  addressed  King  Jaime  in  wrathful  mood, 
blaming  him  for  the  favor  shown  to  Jews  and  ordering  him  to 
deprive  them  of  office  and  to  depress  and  trample  on  them; 
Ben-Astruch  especially,  he  said,  should  be  made  an  example 
without,  however,  mutilating  or  slaying  him.^  This  explosion 
of  papal  indignation  fell  harmless,  but  the  zeal  of  the  Dominicans 
had  been  inflamed  and  in  laboring  for  the  conversion  of  the 
Jews  they  not  unnaturally  aroused  antagonism  toward  those 
who  refused  to  abandon  their  faith.  So  long  before  as  1242, 
Jaime  had  issued  an  edict,  confirmed  by  Innocent  IV  in  1245, 
empov/ering  the  Mendicant  friars  to  have  free  access  to  Juderias 
and  Morerias,  to  assemble  the  inhabitants  and  compel  them  to 
listen  to  sermons  intended  for  their  conversion.^  The  Dominicans 
now  availed  themselves  of  this  with  such  vigor  and  excited 
such  hostility  to  the  Jews  that  Jaime  was  obliged  to  step  for- 
ward for  their  protection.  He  assured  the  al jamas  that  they 
were  not  accountable  for  what  was  contained  in  their  books, 


*  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  Ill,  fol.  546  (Archive  hist,  nacional  de 
Madrid). 

2  Coleccion  de  Documentos,  VI,  167.— Villanueva,  XIII,  336.— Ripoll  BuUar 
Ord.  Predic.  I,  479.  '  Aguirre,  VI,  369. 


92  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

unless  it  was  to  the  dishonor  of  Christ,  the  Virgin  and  the  saints, 
and  all  accusations  must  be  submitted  to  him  in  person; 
their  freedom  of  trade  was  not  to  be  curtailed;  meat  slaugh- 
tered by  them  could  be  freely  exposed  for  sale  in  the  Juderias, 
but  not  elsewhere;  dealing  in  skins  was  not  to  be  interfered 
with;  their  synagogues  and  cemeteries  were  to  be  subject  to 
their  exclusive  control;  their  right  to  receive  interest  on  loans 
was  not  to  be  impaired  nor  their  power  to  collect  debts;  they 
were  not  to  be  compelled  to  listen  to  the  friars  outside  of  their 
Juderias,  because  otherwise  they  were  liable  to  insult  and  dis- 
honor, nor  were  the  frailes  when  preaching  in  the  synagogues 
to  be  accompanied  by  disorderly  mobs,  but  at  most  by  ten  dis- 
creet Christians ;  finally,  no  novel  limitations  were  to  be  imposed 
on  them  except  by  royal  command  after  hearing  them  in  oppo- 
sition/ 

These  provisions  indicate  the  direction  in  which  Dominican 
zeal  was  striving  to  curtail  the  privileges  so  long  enjoyed  by 
the  Jews  and  the  royal  intention  to  protect  them  against  local 
legislation,  which  had  doubtless  been  attempted  under  this 
impulsion.  They  were  not  remiss  in  gratitude,  for  when,  in 
1274,  Jaime  attended  the  council  of  Lyons,  they  contributed 
seventy-one  thousand  sueldos  to  enable  him  to  appear  with 
fitting  magnificence.^  The  royal  protection  was  speedily  needed, 
for  the  tide  of  persecuting  zeal  was  rising  among  the  clergy 
and,  shortly  after  his  return  from  Lyons,  on  a  Good  Friday, 
the  ecclesiastics  of  Gerona  rang  the  bells,  summoned  the  popu- 
lace and  attacked  the  Juderia,  which  was  one  of  the  largest 
and  most  flourishing  in  Catalonia.  They  would  have  succeeded 
in  destroying  it  but  for  the  interposition  of  Jaime,  who  chanced 
to  be  in  the  city  and  who  defended  the  Jews  with  force  of  arms.' 

After  the  death  of  Jaime,  in  1276,  the  ecclesiastics  seem  to 
have  thought  that  they  could  safely  obey  the  commands  of 
Clement  IV,  especially  as  Nicholas  IV,  in  1278,  instructed  the 
Dominican  general  to  depute  pious  brethren  everywhere  to  con- 
voke the  Jews  and  labor  for  their  conversion,  with  the  signifi- 
cant addition  that  lists  of  those  refusing  baptism  were  to  be 
made  out  and  submitted  to  him,  when  he  would  determine  what 
was  to  be  done  with  them.^     How  the  frailes  interpreted  the 

'  Coleccion  de  Documentos,  VI,  170.  ^  Aniador  de  Ids  Rios,  I,  438. 

'  Florez,  Espana  Sagrada,  XLIV,  298. 
*  Septimi  Decretal.  Lib.  v,  Tit.  i,  cap.  2. 


Chap.  Ill]  CONVERSION  AND  PERSECUTION  93 

papal  utterances  is  indicated  in  a  letter  of  Pedro  III  to  Pedro 
Bishop  of  Gerona,  in  April  of  this  same  year,  1278,  reciting  that 
he  had  already  appealed  repeatedly  to  him  to  put  an  end  to  the 
assaults  of  the  clergy  on  the  Jews,  and  now  he  learns  that  they 
have  again  attacked  the  Juderia,  stoning  it  from  the  tower  of 
the  cathedral  and  from  their  own  houses  and  then  assaulting  it, 
laying  waste  the  gardens  and  vineyards  of  the  Jews  and  even 
destroying  their  graves  and,  when  the  royal  herald  stood  up 
to  forbid  the  work,  drowning  his  voice  with  yells  and  derisions. 
Pedro  accuses  the  bishop  of  stimulating  the  clergy  to  these 
outrages  and  orders  him  to  put  a  stop  to  it  and  punish  the 
offenders.^  He  was  still  more  energetic  when  the  French  crusade 
under  Philippe  le  Hardi  was  advancing  to  the  siege  of  Gerona, 
in  1285,  and  his  Moorish  soldiers  in  the  garrison  undertook  to 
sack  the  Call  Jiihich,  or  Juderia,  when  he  threw  himself  among 
them,  mace  in  hand,  struck  down  a  number  and  finished  by 
hanging  several  of  them.^  He  offered  no  impediment,  however, 
to  the  conversion  of  the  Jews  for,  in  1279,  he  ordered  his  officials 
to  compel  them  to  hsten  to  the  Franciscans,  who,  in  obedience 
to  the  commands  of  the  pope,  might  wish  to  preach  to  them 
in  their  synagogues,^  These  intrusions  of  frailes  into  the  Juderias 
inevitably  led  to  trouble,  for  there  is  significance  in  a  letter  of 
Jaime  II,  April  4,  1305,  to  his  representative  in  Palma,  alluding 
to  recent  scandals,  for  the  future  prevention  of  which  he  orders 
that  no  priest  shall  enter  the  Juderia  to  administer  the  sacra- 
ments without  being  accompanied  by  a  secular  official.  This 
precaution  was  unavaihng,  for  it  doubtless  was  a  continuance 
of  such  provocation  that  led  to  a  disturbance,  about  1315,  afford- 
ing to  King  Jaime  an  excuse  for  confiscating  the  whole  property 
of  the  aljama  of  Palma  and  then  commuting  the  penalty  to  a 
fine  of  95,000  lihras.  The  source  of  these  troubles  is  suggested 
by  a  royal  order  of  1327  to  the  Governor  of  Majorca,  forbidding 
the  baptism  of  Jewish  children  under  seven  years  of  age  or  the 
forcible  baptism  of  Jews  of  any  age.^ 

During  all  this  period  there  had  been  an  Inquisition  in  Aragon 
which,  of  course,  could  not  interfere  with  Jews  as  such,  for  they 
were  beyond  its  jurisdiction,  but  which  stood  ready  to  punish 
any  more  or  less  veritable  efforts  at  propagandism  or  offences 

1  Florez,  op.  cit.,  XLIV,  297-99. 

^  Bernard  d'Esclot,  Cronica  del  Rev  en  Pere,  cap.  clii. 

3  Coleccion  de  Documentos,  VI,  194.  ^  Villanueva,  XXI,  165,  303. 


94  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

of  fautorship.  The  crown  had  no  objection  to  using  it  as  a 
means  of  extortion,  while  preventing  it  from  exterminating 
or  crippUng  subjects  so  useful.  A  diploma  of  Jaime  II,  October 
14,  1311,  recites  that  the  inquisitor,  Fray  Juan  Llotger,  had 
learned  that  the  al jamas  of  Barcelona,  Tarragona,  Monblanch 
and  Vilafranca  had  harbored  and  fed  certain  Jewish  converts, 
who  had  relapsed  to  Judaism,  as  well  as  others  who  had  come 
from  foreign  parts.  He  had  given  Fray  Juan  the  necessaiy 
support,  enabling  him  to  verify  the  accusations  on  the  spot 
and  had  received  his  report  to  that  effect.  Now,  therefore,  he 
issues  a  free  and  full  pardon  to  the  offending  aljamas,  with 
assurance  that  they  shall  not  be  prosecuted  either  civilly  or 
criminally,  for  which  grace,  on  October  10th,  they  had  paid 
him  ten  thousand  sueldos.  In  this  case  there  seems  to  have 
been  no  regular  trial  by  the  Inquisition,  the  king  having  super- 
seded it  by  his  action.  In  another  more  serious  case  he  inter- 
vened after  trial  and  sentence  to  commute  the  punishment.  In 
1326  the  aljama  of  Calatayud  subjected  itself  to  the  Inquisition 
by  not  only  receiving  back  a  woman  who  had  been  baptized 
but  by  circumcising  two  Christians.  Tried  by  the  inquisitor 
and  the  Bishop  of  Tarazona  it  had  been  found  guilty  and  it 
had  been  sentenced  to  a  fine  of  twenty  thousand  sueldos  and 
its  members  to  confiscation,  but  King  Jaime,  by  a  cedula  of 
February  6,  1326,  released  them  from  the  confiscation  and  all 
other  penalties  on  payment  of  the  fine.^ 

Although  Castile  was  slower  than  Aragon  to  receive  impulses 
from  abroad,  in  the  early  fourteenth  century  we  begin  to  find 
traces  of  a  similar  movement  of  the  Church  against  the  Jews. 
In  1307  the  aljama  of  Toledo  complained  to  Fernando  IV  that 
the  dean  and  chapter  had  obtained  from  Clement  V  bulls  con- 
ferring on  them  jurisdiction  over  Jews,  in  virtue  of  which  they 
were  enforcing  the  canons  against  usury  and  stripping  the 
Jewish  community  of  its  property.  At  this  time  there  was  no 
question  in  Spain,  such  as  we  shall  see  debated  hereafter,  of 
the  royal  prerogative  to  control  obnoxious  papal  letters,  and 
Fernando  at  once  ordered  the  chapter  to  surrender  the  bulls; 
all  action  under  them  was  pronounced  void  and  restitution  in 
double  was  threatened  for  all  damage  inflicted.     The  Jews,  he 

^  Archive  gen.  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Regist.  208,  fol.  72;  Regist.  229,  fol. 
239. 


[Chap.  Ill  CURTAILMENT  OF  PRIVILEGES  95 

said,  were  his  Jews;  they  were  not  to  be  incapacitated  from 
paying  their  taxes  and  the  pope  had  no  power  to  infringe  on 
the  rights  of  the  crown.  He  instructed  Ferran  Nufiez  de  Pantoja 
to  compel  obedience  and,  after  some  offenders  had  been  arrested, 
the  frightened  canons  surrendered  the  bulls  and  abandoned 
their  promising  speculation,  but  the  affair  left  behind  it  enmities 
which  displayed  themselves  deplorably  afterwards.^ 

In  spite  of  the  royal  favor  and  protection,  the  legislation  of 
the  period  commences  to  manifest  a  tendency  to  limit  the  privi- 
leges of  the  Jews,  showing  that  popular  sentiment  was  gradually 
turning  against  them.  As  early  as  1286  Sancho  IV  agreed  to 
deprive  them  of  their  special  judges  and,  though  the  law  was 
not  generally  enforced,  it  indicates  the  spirit  that  called  for  it 
and  procured  its  repetition  in  the  Cortes  of  Valladolid  in  1307.^ 
Complaints  were  loud  and  numerous  of  the  Jewish  tax-gatherers, 
and  the  young  Fernando  IV  was  obliged  repeatedly  to  promise 
that  the  revenues  should  not  be  farmed  out  nor  their  collection 
be  entrusted  to  caballeros,  ecclesiastics  or  Jews.  The  turbulence 
which  attended  his  minority  and  short  reign  and  the  minority 
of  his  son,  Alfonso  XI,  afforded  a  favorable  opportunity  for 
the  manifestation  of  hostility  and  the  royal  power  was  too 
weak  to  prevent  the  curtailment  in  various  directions  of  the 
Jewish  privileges.'  We  have  seen,  in  the  precechng  chapter,  the 
temper  in  which  the  Spanish  prelates  returned  from  the  Council 
of  Vienne  in  1312  and  the  proscriptive  legislation  enacted  by 
them  in  the  Council  of  Zamora  in  1313  and  its  successors.  Every- 
thing favored  the  development  of  this  spirit  of  intolerance, 
and  at  the  Cortes  of  Burgos,  in  1315,  the  regents  of  the  young 
Alfonso  XI  conceded  that  the  Clementine  canon,  abrogating 
all  laws  that  permitted  usury,  should  be  enforced,  that  all  mixed 
actions,  civil  and  criminal,  should  be  tried  by  the  royal  judges, 
that  the  evidence  of  a  Jew  should  not  be  received  against  a 
Christian  while  that  of  a  Christian  was  good  against  a  Jew, 
that  Jews  were  not  to  assume  Christian  names.  Christian  nurses 
were  not  to  suckle  Jews  and  sumptuary  laws  were  directed 
against  the  luxury  of  Jewish  vestments.* 


1  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  98-102. 

^  Coleccion  de  Privilegios,  VI,  129  (Madrid,  1833). — Benavides,  Memorias  de 
Fernando  IV,  II,  374. 

^  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  90-4. 

*  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  I,  247. — Cap.  1,  Clement.  Lib.  v,  Tit.  v. 


96  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

This  may  be  said  to  mark  the  commencement  of  the  long 
struggle  which,  in  spite  of  their  wonderful  powers  of  resistance, 
was  to  end  in  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish  Jews.  Throughout 
the  varying  phases  of  the  conflict,  the  Church,  in  its  efforts  to 
arouse  popular  hatred,  was  powerfully  aided  by  the  odium 
which  the  Jews  themselves  excited  through  their  ostentation, 
their  usury  and  their  functions  as  pubhc  officials. 

A  strong  race  is  not  apt  to  be  an  amiable  one.  The  Jews  were 
proud  of  their  ancient  lineage  and  the  purity  of  their  descent 
from  the  kings  and  heroes  of  the  Old  Testament.  A  man  who 
could  trace  his  ancestry  to  David  would  look  with  infinite  scorn 
on  the  hidalgos  who  boasted  of  the  blood  of  Lain  Calvo  and,  if 
the  favor  of  the  monarch  rendered  safe  the  expression  of  his 
feelings,  his  haughtiness  was  not  apt  to  win  friends  among 
those  who  repaid  his  contempt  with  interest.  The  Oriental 
fondness  for  display  was  a  grievous  offence  among  the  people. 
The  wealth  of  the  kingdom  was,  to  a  great  extent,  in  Jewish 
hands,  affording  ample  opportunity  of  contrast  between  their 
magnificence  and  the  poverty  of  the  Christian  multitude,  and 
the  lavish  extravagance  with  which  they  adorned  themselves, 
their  women  and  their  retainers,  was  well  fitted  to  excite  envy 
more  potent  for  evil  because  more  wide-spread  than  enmity 
arising  from  individual  wrongs.^  Shortly  before  the  catastrophe, 
at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Affonso  V  of  Portugal,  who 
was  well-affected  towards  them,  asked  the  chief  rabbi,  Joseph- 
Ibn-Jachia,  why  he  did  not  prevent  his  people  from  a  display 
provocative  of  the  assertion  that  their  wealth  was  derived  from 
robbery  of  the  Christians,  adding  that  he  required  no  answer, 
for  nothing  save  spoliation  and  massacre  would  cure  them  of  it.^ 

A  more  practical  and  far-reaching  cause  of  enmity  was  the 
usury,  through  which  a  great  portion  of  their  wealth  was  ac- 
quired. The  money-lender  has  everywhere  been  an  unpopular 
character  and,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  he  was  especially  so.  When 
the  Church  pronounced  any  interest  or  any  advantage,  direct 
or  indirect,  derived  from  loans  to  be  a  sin  for  which  the  sinner 
could  not  be  admitted  to  penance  without  making  restitution; 
when  the  justification  of  taking  interest  was  regarded  as  a  heresy 
to  be  punished  as  such  by  the  Inquisition,  a  stigma  was  placed 
on  the  money-lender,  his  gains  were  rendered  hazardous,  and 

'  Lindo's  History  of  the  Jews  of  Spain,  p.  180. 

2  Graetz,  Geschichte  der  Juden,  VIII,  327  (Ed.  1890). 


Chap.  Ill]  CAUSES  OF  ENMITY  97 

his  calling  became  one  which  an  honorable  Christian  could  not 
follow.^  Mercantile  Italy  early  outgrew  these  dogmas  which 
retarded  so  greatly  all  material  development  and  it  managed 
to  reconcile,  per  fas  et  nefas,  the  canons  with  the  practical  neces- 
sities of  business,  but  elsewhere  throughout  Europe,  wherever 
Jews  were  allowed  to  exist,  the  lending  of  money  or  goods  on 
interest  inevitably  fell,  for  the  most  part,  into  their  hands,  for 
they  were  governed  by  their  own  moral  code  and  were  not  sub- 
ject to  the  Church.  It  exhausted  all  devices  to  coerce  them 
through  their  rulers,  but  the  object  aimed  at  was  too  incom- 
patible with  the  necessities  of  advancing  civilization  to  have  any 
influence  save  the  indefinite  postponement  of  relief  to  the  bor- 
rower.^ 

The  unsavoriness  of  the  calling,  its  risks  and  the  scarcity  of 
coin  during  the  Middle  Ages,  conspired  to  render  the  current 
rates  of  interest  exorbitantly  oppressive.  In  Aragon  the  Jews 
were  allowed  to  charge  20  per  cent,  per  annum,  in  Castile  33^,^ 
and  the  constant  repetition  of  these  limitations  and  the  pro- 
visions against  all  manner  of  ingenious  devices,  by  fictitious 
sales  and  other  frauds,  to  obtain  an  illegal  increase,  show  how 
little  the  laws  were  respected  in  the  grasping  avarice  with  which 
the  Jews  speculated  on  the  necessities  of  their  customers.*  In 
1326  the  aljama  of  Cuenca,  considering  the  legal  rate  of  33^ 
per  cent,  too  low,  refused  absolutely  to  lend  either  money  or 
wheat  for  the  sowing.  This  caused  great  distress  and  the  town- 
council  entered  into  negotiations,  resulting  in  an  agreement 
by  which  the  Jews  were  authorized  to  charge  40  per  cent.^  In 
1385  the  Cortes  of  Valladolid  describe  one  cause  of  the  necessity 
of  submitting  to  whatever  exactions  the  Jews  saw  fit  to  impose, 
when  it  says  that  the  new  lords,  to  whom  Henry  of  Trastamara 


*  Decreti  P.  ii,  Caus.  xiv,  Q.  3,  4,  5,  6.— Cap.  1,  §  2  Clement.  Lib.  v,  Tit.  v. 

^  Cap.  l!2,  Extra,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  xix. — Concil.  Lateran.  IV,  cap.  67. — Concil. 
Lugdunens.  II,  ann.  1274,  cap.  26. — Cap.  1  Clement.  Lib.  v.  Tit.  v. — Concil. 
Pennafidelens.  ann.   1302,   cap.   9. 

'  Marca  Hispanica,  pp.  1415,  1426,  1431. — Constitutions  de  Cathalunya  super- 
fluas,  Lib.  i.  Tit.  v,  cap.  2. — Villanueva,  Viage  Literario,  xxii,  301. — El  Fuero 
Real,  Lib.  iv.  Tit.  ii,  ley  6. 

*  Marca  Hispanica,  pp.  1433,  1436. — Coleccion  de  Documentos  de  la  C.  de 
Aragon,  VI,  170. — Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  I,  127,  227,  281. — Amador  de 
Ids  Rios,  I,  393,  421,  587;  II,  63,  69,  89,  121,  148.— Coleccion  de  Privilegios,  VI, 
111,  113. 

*  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  139. 

7 


98  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

had  granted  towns  and  villages,  were  accustomed  to  imprison 
their  vassals  and  starve  and  torture  them  to  force  payment  of 
what  they  had  not  got,  obliging  them  to  get  money  from  Jews 
to  whom  they  gave  whatever  bonds  were  demanded.^  Mon- 
archs  as  well  as  peasants  were  subject  to  these  impositions.  In 
Navarre,  a  law  of  Fehpe  III,  in  1330,  limited  the  rate  of  interest 
to  20  per  cent,  and  we  find  this  paid  by  his  grandson,  Carlos  III, 
in  1399,  for  a  loan  of  1000  florins  but,  in  1401,  he  paid  at  the 
rate  of  35  per  cent,  for  a  loan  of  2000  florins,  and  in  1402  his 
queen,  Doiia  Leonor,  borrowed  70  florins  from  her  Jewish  phy- 
sician Abraham  at  four  florins  a  month,  giving  him  silver  plate 
as  security;  finding  at  the  end  of  twenty-one  months  that  the 
interest  amounted  to  84  florins,  she  begged  a  reduction  and  he 
contented  himself  with  30  florins.^ 

When  money  could  be  procured  in  no  other  way,  when  the 
burgher  had  to  raise  it  to  pay  his  taxes  or  the  extortions  of  his 
lord  and  the  husbandman  had  to  procure  seed-corn  or  starve, 
it  is  easy  to  see  how  all  had  to  submit  to  the  exactions  of  the 
money-lender;  how,  in  spite  of  occasional  plunder  and  scaling 
of  debts,  the  Jews  absorbed  the  floating  capital  of  the  com- 
munity and  how  recklessly  they  aided  the  frailes  in  concen- 
trating popular  detestation  on  themselves.  It  was  in  vain  that 
the  Ordenamiento  de  Alcala,  in  1348,  prohibited  usury  to  Moors 
and  Jews  as  well  as  to  Christians;  it  was  an  inevitable  necessity 
and  it  continued  to  flourish.^ 

Equally  effective  in  arousing  antipathy  were  the  functions 
of  the  Jews  as  holders  of  office  and  especially  as  almojarifes 
and  recahdores — farmers  of  the  revenues  and  collectors  of  taxes, 
which  brought  them  into  the  closest  and  most  exasperating 
relations  with  the  people.  In  that  age  of  impoverished  treasuries 
and  rude  financial  expedients,  the  customary  mode  of  raising 
funds  was  by  farming  out  the  revenues  to  the  highest  bidder 
of  specific  sums;  as  the  profit  of  the  speculation  depended  on 
the  amount  to  be  wrung  from  the  people,  the  subordinate  col- 
lectors would  be  merciless  in  exaction  and  indefatigable  in 
tracing  out  delinquents,  exciting  odium  which  extended  to  all 

^  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  II,  234. 

^  Yanguas  y  Miranda,  Diccionario  de  Antigiiedades  del  Reino  de  Navarro, 
II,  93. 

^  Ordenamiento  de  Alcald,  Tit.  xxiii,  ley  2.  Cf.  Ordenanzas  Reales,  Lib.  viii, 
Tit.  ii,  leyes  1-8. 


Chap,  mj  CAUSES  OF  ENMITY  99 

the  race.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  Church  repeatedly  prohibited 
the  employment  of  Jews  in  public  office.  Their  ability  and 
skill  rendered  them  indispensable  to  monarchs,  nobles,  and 
prelates,  and  the  complaints  which  arose  against  them  on  all 
sides  were  useless.  Thus  in  the  quarrel  between  the  chapter 
of  Toledo  and  the  great  Archbishop  Rodrigo,  in  which  the 
former  appealed  to  Gregory  IX,  in  1236,  one  of  the  grievances 
alleged  is  that  he  appointed  Jews  to  be  provosts  of  the  common 
table  of  the  chapter,  thus  enabling  them  to  defraud  the  canons; 
they  even  passed  through  the  church  and  often  entered  the 
chapter-house  itself  to  the  great  scandal  of  all  Christians;  they 
collected  the  tithes  and  thirds  and  governed  the  vassals  and 
possessions  of  the  Church,  greatly  enriching  themselves  by  plun- 
dering the  patrimony  of  the  Crucified,  wherefore  the  pope  was 
earnestly  prayed  to  expel  the  Jews  from  these  offices  and 
compel  them  to  make  restitution,^ 

When  prelates  such  as  Archbishop  Rodrigo  paid  so  little  heed 
to  the  commands  of  the  Church,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
monarchs  were  more  obedient  or  were  disposed  to  forego  the 
advantages  derivable  from  the  services  of  these  accomplished 
financiers.  How  these  men  assisted  their  masters  while  enrich- 
ing themselves  is  exemplified  by  Don  ^ag  de  la  Maleha,  almojarife 
mayor  to  Alfonso  X.  When  the  king,  in  1257,  was  raising  an  army 
to  subdue  Aben-Nothfot,  King  of  Niebla,  Don  ^ag  undertook 
to  defray  all  the  expenses  of  the  campaign  in  consideration  of 
the  assignment  to  him  of  certain  taxes,  some  of  which  he  was 
still  enjoying  in  1272.^  It  was  useless  for  the  people  who  groaned 
under  the  exactions  of  these  efficient  officials  to  protest  against 
their  employment  and  to  extort  from  the  monarchs  repeated 
promises  no  longer  to  employ  them.  The  promises  were  never 
kept  and.  Until  the  reign  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  this  source 
of  irritation  continued.  There  was,  it  is  true,  one  exception, 
the  result  of  which  was  not  conducive  to  a  continuance  of  the 
experiment.  In  1385  the  Cortes  of  ValladoHd  obtained  from 
Juan  I  a  decree  prohibiting  the  employment  of  Jews  as  tax- 
collectors,  not  only  by  the  king  but  also  by  prelates  and  nobles, 
in  consequence  of  which  ecclesiastics  obtained  the  collection  of 
the  royal  revenues,  but  when  they  were  called  upon  to  settle 
they  excommunicated  the  alcaldes  who  sought  to  compel  pay- 


Padre  Fidel  Fita,  Boletin,  XI,  404.  »  Amador  de  los  Rios,  I,  488. 


100  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

merit,  leading  to  great  confusion  and  bitterer  complaints  than 
ever/ 

When  the  Jews  thus  gave  grounds  so  ample  for  popular  dis- 
like, it  says  much  for  the  kindly  feeling  between  the  races  that 
the  efforts  of  the  Church  to  excite  a  spirit  of  intolerance  made 
progress  so  slow.  These  took  form,  as  a  comprehensive  and 
systematic  movement  at  the  Council  of  Zamora,  in  1313,  and 
its  successors,  described  in  the  preceding  chapter,  but  in  spite 
of  them  Alfonso  XI  continued  to  protect  his  Jewish  subjects 
and  the  labors  of  the  good  fathers  awoke  no  popular  response. 
In  Aragon  a  canon  of  the  Council  of  Lerida,  in  1325,  forbidding 
Christians  to  be  present  at  Jewish  weddings  and  circumcisions, 
shows  how  fruitless  as  yet  had  been  the  effort  to  produce  mutual 
alienation.^ 

Navarre  had  the  earliest  foretaste  of  the  wrath  to  come.  It 
was  then  under  its  French  princes  and,  when  Charles  le  Bel 
died,  February  1,  1328,  a  zealous  Franciscan,  Fray  Pedro  Olligo- 
yen,  apparently  taking  advantage  of  the  interregnum,  stirred, 
with  his  eloquent  preaching,  the  people  to  rise  against  the  Jews, 
and  led  them  to  pillage  and  slaughter.  The  storm  burst  on  the 
aljama  of  Estella,  March  1st,  and  rapidly  spread  throughout 
the  kingdom.  Neither  age  nor  sex  was  spared  and  the  num- 
ber of  victims  is  variously  estimated  at  from  six  to  ten  thousand. 
Queen  Jeanne  and  her  husband  Philippe  d'Evreux,  who  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne,  caused  Olligoyen  to  be  prosecuted,  but 
the  result  is  not  known.  They  further  speculated  on  the  terrible 
massacre  by  imposing  heavy  fines  on  Estella  and  Viana  and 
by  seizing  the  property  of  the  dead  and  fugitive  Jews,  and  they 
also  levied  on  the  ruined  aljamas  the  sum  of  fifteen  thousand 
livres  to  defray  their  coronation  expenses.  Thus  fatally  weak- 
ened, the  Jews  of  Navarre  were  unable  to  endure  the  misfor- 
tunes of  the  long  and  disastrous  reign  of  Charles  le  Mauvais 
(1350-1387).  A  general  emigration  resulted,  to  arrest  which 
Charles  prohibited  the  purchase  of  landed  property  from  Jews 
without  special  royal  license.  A  list  of  taxables,  in  1366,  shows 
only  453  Jewish  families  and  150  Moorish,  not  inclucUng  Pam- 
peluna,  where  both  races  were  taxable  by  the  bishop.  Although 
Charles  and  his  son  Charles  le  Noble  (1387-1425)  had  Jews  for 
almojarifes,  it  was  in  vain  that  they  endeavored  to  allure  the 

*  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  II,  325. — Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  320. 

*  Villanueva,  XVII,  247. 


Chap.  Ill]  THE  BLACK  DEATH  201 

fugitives  back  by  privileges  and  exemptions.  The  aljamas  con- 
tinued to  dwindle  until  the  revenue  from  them  was  inconsid- 
erable/ 

♦  In  Castile  and  Aragon  the  Black  Death  caused  massacres  of 
Jews,  as  elsewhere  throughout  Europe,  though  not  so  wide-spread 
and  terrible.  In  Catalonia  the  troubles  commenced  at  Barcelona 
and  spread  to  other  places,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  Pedro  IV, 
both  in  prevention  and  punishment.  They  had  Uttle  special 
religious  significance,  but  were  rather  the  result  of  the  relaxation 
of  social  order  in  the  fearful  disorganization  accompanying  the 
pestilence  and,  after  it  had  passed,  the  survivors,  Christians, 
Jews  and  Mudejares  were  for  a  moment  knit  more  closely  together 
in  the  bonds  of  a  common  humanity.^  It  is  to  the  credit  of 
Clement  VI  that  he  did  what  he  could  to  arrest  the  fanaticism 
which,  especially  in  Germany,  offered  to  the  Jews  the  alternative 
of  death  or  baptism.  Following,  as  he  said,  in  the  footsteps  of 
CaHxtus  II,  Eugenius  III,  Alexander  III,  Clement  III,  Ccelestin 
III,  Innocent  III,  Gregory  IX,  Nicholas  III,  Honorius  IV  and 
Nicholas  IV,  he  pointed  out  the  absurdity  of  attributing  the 
plague  to  the  Jews.  They  had  offered  to  submit  to  judicial  exam- 
ination and  sentence,  besides  which  the  pestilence  raged  in  lands 
where  there  were  no  Jews.  He  therefore  ordered  all  prelates  to 
proclaim  to  the  people  assembled  for  worship  that  Jews  were  not 
to  be  beaten,  wounded,  or  slain  and  that  those  who  so  treated 
them  were  subjected  to  the  anathema  of  the  Holy  See.  It  was  a 
timely  warning  and  worthy  of  one  who  spoke  in  the  name  of 
Christ,  but  it  availed  little  to  overcome  the  influence  of  the 
assiduous  teaching  of  intolerance  through  so  many  centuries.^ 

When  Pedro  the  Cruel  ascended  the  throne  of  Castile,  in  1350, 
the  Jews  might  reasonably  look  forward  to  a  prosperous  future, 
but  his  reign  in  reality  proved  the  turning-point  in  their  fortunes. 
He  surrounded  himself  with  Jews  and  confided  to  them  the  pro- 
tection of  his  person,  while  the  rebelHous  faction,  headed  by 
Henry  of  Trastamara,  his  illegitimate  brother,  declared  them- 
selves the  enemies  of  the  race  and  used  Pedro's  favor  for  them 
as  a  political  weapon.    He  was  asserted  to  be  a  Jew,  substituted 


'  Zurita,  Anales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  vi,  cap.  Ixxviii. — Amador  de  los  Rios,  II, 
175-9,  284-5,  289-91. 

^  Zurita,  Lib.  viii,  cap.  xxvi,  xxxiii. — Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  260,  263, 
299-300. 

^  Raynald.  Annal.  aiin.  1348,  n.  83. 


102  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CON  VERS  OS  [Book  I 

for  a  girl  born  of  Queen  Maria  whose  husband,  Alfonso  XI,  was 
said  to  have  sworn  that  he  would  kill  her  if  she  did  not  give  him 
a  boy.  It  was  also  reported  that  he  was  no  Christian  but  an 
adherent  to  the  Law  of  Moses  and  that  the  government  of  Castile 
was  wholly  in  the  hands  of  Jews.  It  was  not  cUfficult  therefore 
to  arouse  clerical  hostility,  as  manifested  by  Urban  V,  who 
denounced  him  as  a  rebel  to  the  Church,  a  fautor  of  Jews  and 
Moors,  a  propagator  of  infidelity  and  a  slayer  of  Christians,^  Of 
this  the  insurgents  took  full  advantage  and  demonstrated  their 
piety  in  the  most  energetic  manner.  When,  in  1355,  Henry  of 
Trastamara  and  his  brother,  the  Master  of  Santiago,  entered 
Toledo  to  liberate  Queen  Blanche,  who  was  confined  in  the 
alcazar,  they  sacked  the  smaller  Juderi'a  and  slew  its  twelve 
hundred  inmates  without  sparing  sex  or  age.  They  also  besieged 
the  principal  Juderia,  which  was  walled  around  and  defended  by 
Pedro's  followers  until  his  arrival  with  reinforcements  drove  off 
the  assailants,^  Five  years  later  when,  in  1360,  Henry  of  Trasta- 
mara invaded  Castile  with  the  aid  of  Pedro  IV  of  Aragon,  on 
reaching  Najara  he  ordered  a  massacre  of  the  Jews  and,  as  Ayala 
states  that  this  was  done  to  win  popularity,  it  may  be  assumed 
that  free  license  for  pillage  was  granted.  Apparently  stimulated 
by  this  example  the  people  of  Miranda  del  Ebro,  led  by  Pero 
Martinez,  son  of  the  precentor  and  by  Pero  Sanchez  de  Baiiuelas, 
fell  upon  the  Jews  of  their  town,  but  King  Pedro  hastened  thither 
and,  as  a  deterrent  example,  boiled  the  one  leader  and  roasted  the 
other,^  When  at  length,  in  1366,  Henry  led  into  Spain  Bertrand 
de  Guesclin  and  his  hordes  of  Free  Companions,  the  slaughter 
of  the  Jews  was  terrible.  Multitudes  fled  and  the  French  chron- 
icler deplores  the  number  that  sought  refuge  in  Paris  and  preyed 
upon  the  people  with  their  usuries.  The  aljama  of  Toledo  pur- 
chased exemption  with  a  million  of  maravedis,  raised  in  ten  days, 
to  pay  off  the  mercenaries  but,  as  the  whole  land  lay  for  a  time 
at  the  mercy  of  the  reckless  bands,  slaughter  and  pillage  were 
general.  Finally  the  fratricide  at  Montiel,  in  1369,  deprived  the 
Jews  of  their  protector  and  left  Henry  undisputed  master  of  Cas- 
tile.*   What  they  had  to  expect  from  him  was  indicated  by  his 


*  Guill.    Nangiac,    Contin.    ann.    1366. — Quarta  Vita    Urbani   V   (Muratori, 
,  R.  I.,  Ill,  II,  641). 

'  Ayala,  Cronica  de  Pedro  I,  ano  vi,  cap.  vii. 
^  Ibidem,  ano  ix,  cap.  vii,  viii. 

*  Guill.  Nangiac.  Contin.  ann.  1366. — Ayala,  ano  xvii,  cap.  viii. 


Chap.  Ill]  INCREASING  HOSTILITY  103 

levying,  June  6,  1369,  within  three  months  of  his  brother's 
murder,  twenty  thousand  doblas  on  the  Juderia  of  Toledo  and 
authorizing  the  sale  at  auction,  not  only  of  the  property  of  the 
inmates,  but  of  their  persons  into  slavery,  or  their  imprisonment 
in  chains  with  starvation  or  torture,  until  the  amount  should  be 
raised.  It  was  doubtless  to  earn  popularity  that  about  the  same 
time  he  released  all  Christians  and  Moors  from  obligation  to  pay 
debts  due  to  Jews,  though  he  was  subsequently  persuaded  to 
rescind  this  decree,  which  would  have  destroyed  the  ability  of 
the  Jews  to  pay  their  imposts.^ 

Yet  the  Jews  were  indispensable  in  the  conduct  of  affairs  and 
Henry  was  obliged  to  employ  them,  like  his  predecessors.  His 
contador  mayor  was  Yugaf  Pichon,  a  Jew  of  the  highest  considera- 
tion, who  incurred  the  enmity  of  some  of  the  leaders  of  his  people. 
They  accused  him  to  the  king,  who  demanded  of  him  forty  thou- 
sand doblas,  which  sum  he  paid  within  twenty  days.  With 
rancor  unsatisfied,  when  Henry  died,  in  1379,  and  his  son  Juan  I 
came  to  Burgos  to  be  crowned,  they  obtained  from  him  an  order 
to  his  alguazil  to  put  to  death  a  mischief-making  Jew  whom  they 
would  designate.  Armed  with  this  they  took  the  alguazil  to 
Pichon's  house  in  the  early  morning,  called  him  on  some  pretext 
from  his  bed  and  pointed  him  out  as  the  designated  person  to  the 
alguazil,  who  killed  him  on  the  spot.  Juan  was  greatly  angered ; 
the  alguazil  was  punished  with  the  loss  of  a  hand,  the  judge  of 
the  Juderia  of  Burgos  was  put  to  death  and  the  Jews  of  Castile 
were  deprived  of  jurisdiction  over  the  lives  of  their  fellows.^ 

We  have  already  seen  how  the  legislation  of  this  period  was 
rapidly  taking  a  direction  unfavorable  to  the  Jews.  The  accession 
of  the  House  of  Trastamara  had  distinctly  injured  their  position, 
the  Church  had  freer  scope  to  excite  popular  prejudice,  while 
their  retention  as  tax-collectors  and  their  usurious  practices 
afforded  ample  material  for  the  stimulation  of  popular  vindica- 
tiveness.  The  condition  existed  for  a  catastrophe,  and  the  man 
to  precipitate  it  was  not  lacking.  Ferran  Martinez,  Archdeacon 
of  Ecija  and  Official,  or  judicial  representative  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Seville,  Pedro  Barroso,  was  a  man  of  indomitable  firmness  and, 
though  without  much  learning,  was  highly  esteemed  for  his 
unusual  devoutness,  his  soHd  virtue  and  his  eminent  charity — 
which  latter  quahty  he  evinced  in  founding  and  supporting  the 

'  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  571-3.— Boletin,  XXIX,  254. 
^  Ayala,  Cronica  de  Juan  I,  afio  i,  cap.  iii. 


104  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

hospital  of  Santa  Maria  in  Seville/  Unfortunately  he  was  a 
fanatic  and  the  Jews  were  the  object  of  his  remorseless  zeal, 
which  his  high  official  position  gave  him  ample  opportunity  of 
gratifying.  In  his  sermons  he  denounced  them  savagely  and 
excited  popular  passion  against  them,  keeping  them  in  constant 
apprehension  of  an  outbreak  while,  as  ecclesiastical  judge,  he 
extended  his  jurisdiction  illegally  over  them,  to  their  frequent 
damage.  In  conjunction  with  other  episcopal  officials  he  issued 
letters  to  the  magistrates  of  the  towns  ordering  them  to  expel 
the  Jews — letters  which  he  sought  to  enforce  by  personal  visita- 
tions. The  aljama  of  Seville,  the  largest  and  richest  in  Castile, 
appealed  to  the  king  and,  Uttle  as  Henry  of  Trastamara  loved 
the  Jews,  the  threatened  loss  to  his  finances  led  him,  in  August, 
1378,  to  formally  command  Martinez  to  desist  from  his  incendiary 
course,  nor  was  this  the  first  warning,  as  is  shown  by  allusions  to 
previous  letters  of  the  same  import.  To  this  Martinez  paid  no 
obedience  and  the  aljama  had  recourse  to  Rome,  where  it  pro- 
cured bulls  for  its  protection,  which  Martinez  disregarded  as  con- 
temptuously as  he  had  the  royal  mandate.  Complaint  was  again 
made  to  the  throne  and  Juan  I,  in  1382,  repeated  his  father's 
commands  to  no  effect,  for  another  royal  letter  of  1383  accuses 
Martinez  of  saying  in  his  sermons  that  he  knew  the  king  would 
regard  as  a  service  any  assault  or  slaying  of  the  Jews  and  that 
impunity  might  be  relied  upon.  For  this  he  was  threatened  with 
punishment  that  would  make  an  example  of  him,  but  it  did  not 
silence  him  and,  in  1388,  the  frightened  aljama  summoned  him 
before  the  alcaldes  and  had  the  three  royal  letters  read,  summon- 
ing him  to  obey  them.  He  replied  with  insults  and,  a  week  later, 
put  in  a  formal  answer  in  which  he  said  that  he  was  but  obeying 
Christ  and  the  laws  and  that,  if  he  were  to  execute  the  laws,  he 
would  tear  down  the  twenty-three  synagogues  in  Seville  as  they 
had  all  been  illegally  erected.^ 

The  dean  and  chapter  became  alarmed  and  appealed  to  the 
king,  but  Juan,  in  place  of  enforcing  his  neglected  commands, 
replied  that  he  would  look  into  the  matter;  the  zeal  of  the  arch- 

*  Zuniga,  Annales  de  Sevilla,  afio  1395,  n.  2;  ano  1404,  n.  4. 

*  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  33S-9,  579-89.— We  have  seen  the  prohibition,  in 
the  imperial  jurisprudence,  to  erect  new  synagogues,  and  this  was  sedulously  pre- 
served in  the  canon  law. — Cap.  3,  8,  Extra,  v,  vi. 

The  twenty-three  synagogues  evidently  refer  to  all  in  the  diocese  of  Seville. 
At  the  time  of  the  outbreak  there  were  but  three  in  the  city. 


Chap.  Ill]  THE  MASSACRES  OF  1S91  105 

deacon  was  holy,  but  it  must  not  be  allowed  to  breed  disturbance 
for,  although  the  Jews  were  wicked,  they  were  under  the  royal 
protection.  This  vacillation  encouraged  Martinez  who  labored 
sail  more  strenuously  to  inflame  the  people,  newly  prejudiced 
against  the  Jews  by  the  murder  of  Yugaf  Pichon,  who  had  been 
greatly  beloved  by  all  Seville/  No  one  dared  to  interfere  in  their 
defence,  but  Martinez  furnished  an  opportunity  of  silencing  him 
by  calling  in  question  in  his  sermons  the  powers  of  the  pope  in 
certain  matters.  He  was  summoned  before  an  assembly  of 
theologians  and  doctors,  when  he  was  as  defiant  of  the  episcopal 
authority  as  of  the  royal,  rendering  himself  contumacious  and 
suspect  of  heresy,  wherefore  on  August  2,  1389,  Archbishop 
Barroso  suspended  him  both  as  to  jurisdiction  and  preaching 
until  his  trial  should  be  concluded.^  This  gave  the  Jews  a  breath- 
ing-space, but  Barroso  died,  July  7,  1390,  followed,  October  9, 
by  Juan  I.  The  chapter  must  have  secretly  sympathized  with 
Martinez,  for  it  elected  him  one  of  the  provisors  of  the  diocese 
sede  vacante,  thus  clothing  him  with  increased  power,  and  we 
hear  nothing  more  of  the  trial  for  heresy.^ 

Juan  had  left  as  his  successor  Henry  III,  known  as  El  Doliente, 
or  the  Invalid,  a  child  of  eleven,  and  quarrels  threatening  civil 
war  at  once  arose  over  the  question  of  the  regency.  Martinez 
now  had  nothing  to  fear  and  he  lost  no  time  in  sending,  Decem- 
ber 8th,  to  the  clergy  of  the  towns  in  the  diocese,  commands 
under  pain  of  excommunication  to  tear  down  within  three  hours 
the  synagogues  of  the  enemies  of  God  calling  themselves  Jews; 
the  building  materials  were  to  be  used  for  the  repair  of  the 
churches;  if  resistance  was  offered  it  was  to  be  suppressed  by 
force  and  an  interdict  be  laid  on  the  town  until  the  good  work 
was  accomplished.^  These  orders  were  not  universally  obeyed 
but  enough  ruin  was  wrought  to  lead  the  frightened  aljama  of 
Seville  to  appeal  to  the  regency,  threatening  to  leave  the  land  if 
they  could  not  be  protected  from  Martinez.  The  answer  to  this 
was  prompt  and  decided.  On  December  22d  a  missive  was 
addressed  to  the  dean  and  chapter  and  was  officially  read  to  them, 
January  10,  1391.    It  held  them  responsible  for  his  acts  as  they 


'  Zufiiga,  Annales  de  Sevilla,  ano  1379,  n.  3;  ano  1388,  n.  3. 

'  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  592-4. 

'  Acta  capitular  del  Cabildo  de  Sevilla,  10-15  de  Enero  de  1391  (Bibl.  nacional, 

MSS.,  Dd,  108,  fol.  78). 

*  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  613. 


106  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

had  elected  him  provisor  and  had  not  checked  him;  he  must  be 
at  once  removed  from  office,  be  forced  to  abstain  from  preaching 
and  to  rebuild  the  ruined  synagogues,  in  default  of  which  they 
must  make  good  all  damages  and  incur  a  fine  of  a  thousand  gold 
doblas  each  with  other  arbitrary  punishments.  Letters  of  similar 
import  were  addressed  at  the  same  time  to  Martinez  himself. 
On  January  15th  the  chapter  again  assembled  and  presented  its 
official  reply,  which  deprived  Martinez  of  the  provisorship,  for- 
bade him  to  preach  against  the  Jews  and  required  him  within  a 
year  to  rebuild  all  synagogues  destroyed  by  his  orders.  Then 
Martinez  arose  and  protested  that  neither  king  nor  chapter  had 
jurisdiction  over  him  and  their  sentences  were  null  and  void. 
The  synagogues  had  been  destroyed  by  order  of  Archbishop 
Barroso — two  of  them  in  his  lifetime — and  they  had  been  built 
illegally  without  licence.  His  defiant  answer  concluded  with  a 
declaration  that  he  repented  of  nothing  that  he  had  done.^ 

The  result  justified  the  dauntless  reliance  of  Martinez  on  the 
popular  passion  which  he  had  been  stimulating  for  so  many  years. 
What  answer  the  regency  made  to  this  denial  of  its  jurisdiction 
the  documents  fail  to  inform  us,  but  no  effective  steps  were  taken 
to  restrain  him.  His  preaching  continued  as  violent  as  ever  and 
the  Seville  mob  grew  more  and  more  restless  in  the  prospect  of 
gratifying  at  once  its  zeal  for  the  faith  and  its  thirst  for  pillage. 
In  March  the  aspect  of  affairs  was  more  alarming  than  ever;  the 
rabble  were  feeling  their  way,  with  outrages  and  insults,  and  the 
Juderia  was  in  hourly  danger  of  being  sacked.  Juan  Alonso 
Guzman,  Count  of  Niebla,  the  most  powerful  noble  of  Andalusia, 
was  adelantado  of  the  province  and  alcalde  mayor  of  Seville  and 
his  kinsman,  Alvar  Perez  de  Guzman,  was  alguazil  mayor.  On 
March  15th  they  seized  some  of  the  most  turbulent  of  the  crowd 
and  proceeded  to  scourge  two  of  them  but,  in  place  of  awing  the 
populace,  this  led  to  open  sedition.  The  Guzmans  were  glad 
to  escape  with  their  lives  and  popular  fury  was  directed  against 
the  Jews,  resulting  in  considerable  bloodshed  and  plunder,  but 
at  length  the  authorities,  aided  by  the  nobles,  prevailed  and  order 
was  apparently  restored.  By  this  time  the  agitation  was  spread- 
ing to  Cordova,  Toledo,  Burgos  and  other  places.  Everywhere 
fanaticism  and  greed  were  aroused  and  the  Council  of  Regency 
vainly  sent  pressing  commands  to  all  the  large  cities,  in  the  hope 
of  averting  the  catastrophe.     Martinez  continued  his  inflamma- 

*  Acta  capitular,  ubi  sup. 


CiiAP.  Ill]  THE  MASSACRES  OF  1591  107 

tory  harangues  and  sought  to  turn  to  the  advantage  of  rehgion 
the  storm  which  he  had  aroused,  by  procuring  a  general  forcible 
conversion  of  the  Jews.  The  excitement  increased  and,  on  June 
9th  the  tempest  broke  in  a  general  rising  of  the  populace  against 
the  Juderia.  Few  of  its  inhabitants  escaped;  the  number  of  slain 
was  estimated  at  four  thousand  and  those  of  the  survivors  who 
did  not  succeed  in  flying  only  saved  their  lives  by  accepting 
baptism.  Of  the  three  synagogues  two  were  converted  into 
churches  for  the  Christians  who  settled  in  the  Jewish  quarter  and 
the  third  sufficed  for  the  miserable  remnant  of  Israel  which  slowly 
gathered  together  after  the  storm  had  passed.^ 

From  Seville  the  flame  spread  through  the  kingdoms  of  Castile 
from  shore  to  shore.  In  the  paralysis  of  public  authority,  during 
the  summer  and  early  autumn  of  1391,  one  city  after  another 
followed  the  example;  the  Juderias  were  sacked,  the  Jews  who 
would  not  submit  to  baptism  were  slain  and  fanaticism  and 
cupidity  held  their  orgies  unchecked.  The  Moors  escaped,  for 
though  many  wished  to  include  them  in  the  slaughter,  they  were 
restrained  by  a  wholesome  fear  of  reprisals  on  the  Christian  cap- 
tives in  Granada  and  Africa.  The  total  number  of  victims  was 
estimated  at  fifty  thousand,  but  this  is  probably  an  exaggeration. 
For  this  wholesale  butchery  and  its  accompanying  rapine  there 
was  complete  immunity.  In  Castile  there  was  no  attempt  made 
to  punish  the  guilty.  It  is  true  that  when  Henry  attained  his 
majority,  in  1395,  and  came  to  Seville,  he  caused  Martinez  to  be 
arrested,  but  the  penalty  inflicted  must  have  been  trivial,  for  we 
are  told  that  it  did  not  affect  the  high  estimation  in  which  he  was 
held  and,  on  his  death  in  1404,  he  bequeathed  valuable  posses- 
sions to  the  Hospital  of  Santa  Maria.  The  misfortunes  of  the 
aljama  of  Seville  were  rendered  complete  when,  in  January, 
1396,  Henry  bestowed  on  two  of  his  favorites  all  the  houses  and 
lands  of  the  Jews  there  and  in  May  he  followed  this  by  forbidding 
that  any  of  those  concerned  in  the  murder  and  pillage  should  be 
harassed  with  punishment  or  fines.^ 

1  Zuiiiga,  Annales  de  Sevilla,  ano  1391,  n.  1,  2,  3.— Ayala,  Cronica  de  Enrique 
III,  ano  I,  cap.  v,  xx. — Barrantes,  Hustraciones  de  la  Casa  de  Niebla,  Lib.  v, 
cap.  XX. — Archivo  de  Sevilla,  Seccion  primera,  Carpeta  ii,  n.  53. 

*  Ayala,  Cronica  de  Enrique  III,  ano  1391,  cap.  xx. — Mariana,  Hist,  de  Espana, 
Lib.  XVIII,  cap.  xv. — Colmenares,  Hist,  de  Segovia,  cap.  xxvii,  §  3. — Fidel  Fita, 
Boletin,  IX,  347.— Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  360-3,  370-1,  382,  389,  391.— Zufiiga, 
Annales  de  Sevilla,  ano  1391,  n.  2;  ano  1404,  n.  4.— Archive  de  Sevilla,  Seccion 
primera,  Carpeta  cvii,  n.  1. 


108  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CON  VERSOS  [Book  i 

In  Aragon  there  was  a  king  more  ready  to  meet  the  crisis 
and  the  warning  given  at  Seville  was  not  neglected.  Popular 
excitement  was  manifesting  itself  by  assaults,  robberies  and 
murders  in  many  places.  In  the  city  of  Valencia,  which  had  a 
large  Jewish  population,  the  authorities  exerted  themselves  to 
repress  these  excesses  and  King  Juan  I  ordered  gallows  to  be 
erected  in  the  streets,  while  a  guard  made  nightly  rounds  along 
the  walls  of  the  Juderia.  These  precautions  and  the  presence  of 
the  Infante  Martin,  who  was  recruiting  for  an  expedition  to 
Sicily,  postponed  the  explosion,  but  it  came  at  last.  On  Sunday, 
July  9,  1391,  a  crowd  of  boys,  with  crosses  made  of  cane  and  a 
banner,  marched  to  one  of  the  gates  of  the  Juderia,  crying  death 
or  baptism  for  the  Jews.  By  the  time  the  gate  was  closed  a  por- 
tion of  the  boys  were  inside  and  those  excluded  shouted  that  the 
Jews  were  killing  their  comrades.  Hard  by  there  was  a  recruiting 
station  with  its  group  of  idle  vagabonds,  who  rushed  to  the 
Juderia  and  the  report  spread  through  the  city  that  the  Jews 
were  slaying  Christians.  The  magistrates  and  the  Infante  has- 
tened to  the  gate,  but  the  frightened  Jews  kept  it  closed  and 
thus  they  were  excluded,  while  the  mob  effected  entrance  from 
adjoining  houses  and  by  the  old  rampart  below  the  bridge.  The 
Juderia  was  sacked  and  several  hundred  Jews  were  slain  before 
the  tumult  could  be  suppressed.  Demonstrations  were  also  made 
on  the  Moreria,  but  troops  were  brought  up  and  the  mob  was 
driven  back.  Some  seventy  or  eighty  arrests  were  made  and 
the  next  day  a  searching  investigation  as  to  the  vast  amount  of 
plunder  led  to  the  recovery  of  much  of  it.^ 

This  added  to  the  agitation  which  went  on  increasing.  With 
August  4th  came  the  feast  of  St.  Dominic,  when  the  Dominicans 
were  everywhere  conspicuous  and  active.  The  next  day,  as 
though  in  concert,  the  tempest  burst  in  Toledo  and  Barcelona 
— in  the  former  city  with  fearful  massacre  and  conflagration.  In 
the  latter,  despite  the  warning  at  Valencia,  the  authorities  were 
unprepared  when  the  mob  arose  and  rushed  into  the  call  or  Jewry, 
slaying  without  mercy.  A  general  demand  for  baptism  went  up 
and,  when  the  civic  forces  arrived  the  slaughter  was  stopped, 
but  the  plunder  continued.  Some  of  the  pillagers  were  arrested, 
and  among  them  a  few  Castilians  who,  as  safe  victims,  were  con- 
demned to  death  the  next  day.  Under  pretext  that  this  was 
unjust  the  mob  broke  into  the  gaol  and  liberated  the  prisoners. 

»  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  595-604. 


Chap.  Ill]  THE  MASSACRES  OF  1391  109 

Then  the  cry  arose  to  finish  with  the  Jews,  who  had  taken  refuge 
in  the  Castillo  Nuevo,  which  was  subjected  to  a  regular  siege. 
Ringing  the  bells  brought  in  crowds  of  peasants  eager  for  dis- 
order and  spoil.  The  Bayli'a  was  attacked  and  the  registers  of 
crown  property  destroyed,  in  the  hope  of  evading  taxes.  On 
August  8th  the  Castillo  Nuevo  was  entered  and  all  Jews  who 
would  not  accept  baptism  were  put  to  the  sword;  the  castle  was 
sacked  and  the  peasants  departed  laden  with  booty.  The  Juderia 
of  Barcelona  must  have  been  small,  for  the  number  of  slain  was 
estimated  at  only  three  hundred.^ 

At  Palma,  the  capital  of  Majorca,  some  three  hundred  Jews 
were  put  to  death  and  the  rest  escaped  only  by  submitting  to 
baptism.  The  riots  continued  for  some  time  and  spread  to 
attacks  on  the  public  buildings,  until  the  gentlemen  of  the  city 
armed  themselves  and,  after  a  stubborn  conflict,  suppressed  the 
disturbance.  The  chief  aljamas  of  the  kingdom  were  the  appan- 
age of  the  queen  consort  and  Queen  Violante  made  good  her  losses 
by  levying  on  the  island  a  fine  of  150,000  gold  florins.  The  gen- 
tlemen of  Palma  remonstrated  at  the  hardship  of  being  punished 
after  putting  down  the  rioters;  she  reduced  the  fine  to  120,000, 
swearing  by  the  life  of  her  unborn  child  that  she  would  have 
justice.  The  fine  was  paid  and  soon  afterwards  she  gave  birth  to 
a  still-born  infant.^  Thus  in  one  place  after  another— Gerona, 
Lerida,  Saragossa— the  subterranean  flame  burst  forth,  fed  by 
the  infernal  passions  of  fanaticism,  greed  and  hatred.  It  seems 
incredible  that,  with  the  royal  power  resolved  to  protect  its 
unhappy  subjects,  these  outrages  should  have  continued  through- 
out the  summer  into  autumn  for,  when  the  local  authorities  were 
determined  to  suppress  these  uprisings,  as  at  Murviedro  and  Cas- 
tellon  de  la  Plana,  they  were  able  to  do  so.^ 

If  Juan  I  was  unable  to  prevent  the  massacres  he  at  least  was 
determined  not  to  let  them  pass  unpunished;  many  executions 
followed  and  some  commutations  for  money  payments  were 
granted."  The  aljama  of  Barcelona  had  been  a  source  of  much 
profit  to  the  crown  and  he  strove  to  re-estabUsh  it  in  new  quarters, 

1  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  372-77,  398.— Bofarull  y  Broca,  Hist,  de  Cataluiia, 
V,  35. 

2  Historia  general  de  Mallorca,  II,  319  (Ed.  1841).— Loeb,  Revue  des  Etudes 
Juives,  1887,  p.  172.— Villamieva,  XXI,  224. 

5  Revue  des  Etudes  Juives,  1887,  pp.  261-2. 

*  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  392-4.— Coleccion  de  Doc.  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon, 
VL  430. 


110  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CON  VERS  OS  [Book  I 

offering  various  privileges  and  exemptions  to  attract  new-comers. 
It  was  crushed  however  beyond  resuscitation;  but  few  of  its 
members  had  escaped  by  hiding ;  nearly  all  had  been  slain  or  bap- 
tized and,  great  as  were  the  franchises  offered,  the  memory  of  the 
catastrophe  seems  to  have  outweighed  them.  In  1395  the  new 
synagogue  was  converted  into  a  church  or  monastery  of  Trini- 
tarian monks  and  the  wealthy  aljama  of  Barcelona,  with  its 
memories  of  so  many  centuries,  ceased  to  exist.^  About  the  year 
1400,  the  city  obtained  a  privilege  which  prohibited  the  forma- 
tion of  a  Juderia  or  the  residence  of  a  Jew  within  its  hmits. 
Antipathy  to  Judaism,  as  we  shall  see,  was  rapidly  increasing 
and  when,  in  1425,  Alfonso  VI  confirmed  this  privilege  he  decreed 
that  all  Jews  then  in  the  city  should  depart  within  sixty  days, 
under  penalty  of  scourging,  and  thereafter  a  stay  of  fifteen  days 
was  the  utmost  limit  allowed  for  temporary  residence.^ 

If  I  have  dwelt  in  what  may  seem  disproportionate  length  on 
this  guerra  sacra  contra  los  Jiidios,  as  Villanueva  terms  these 
massacres,^  it  is  because  they  form  a  turning-point  in  Spanish 
history.  In  the  relations  between  the  races  of  the  Peninsula  the 
old  order  of  things  was  closed  and  the  new  order,  which  was  to 
prove  so  benumbing  to  material  and  intellectual  development, 
was  about  to  open.  The  immediate  results  were  not  long  in 
becoming  apparent.  Not  only  was  the  prosperity  of  Castile  and 
Aragon  diminished  by  the  shock  to  the  commerce  and  industry 
so  largely  in  Jewish  hands,  but  the  revenues  of  the  crown,  the 
churches  and  the  nobles,  based  upon  the  taxation  of  the  Jews, 
suffered  enormously.  Pious  foundations  were  ruined  and  bishops 
had  to  appeal  to  the  king  for  assistance  to  maintain  the  services 
of  their  cathedrals.  Of  the  Jews  who  had  escaped,  the  major  por- 
tion had  only  done  so  by  submitting  to  baptism  and  these  were 
no  longer  subject  to  the  capitation  tax  and  special  imposts  which 
had  furnished  the  surest  part  of  the  income  of  cities,  prelates, 
nobles  and  sovereigns.^  Still  the  converted  Jews,  with  their 
energy  and  intelhgence  remained,  unfettered  and  unhampered  in 
the  pursuit  of  wealth  and  advancement,  which  was  to  benefit  the 
community  as  well  as  themselves.    It  was  reserved  for  a  further 

>  Coleccion  de  Documentos,  VI,  436,  438,  441,  454. 

'  Jose  Fiter  y  Ingles,  Expulsion  de  los  Judfos  de  Barcelona,  pp.  8-14  (Barce- 
lona, 1876).    This  edict  was  renewed  in  1479,  1480  and  1481  (Ibid.  pp.  15-19). 
3  Viage  literario,  XVIII,  20.  *  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  382-5. 


Chap.  Ill]  EFFECTS  OF  THE  MASSACRES  HI 

progress  in  the  path  now  entered  to  deprive  Spain  of  the  services 
of  her  most  industrious  children. 

The  most  deplorable  result  of  the  massacres  was  that  they 
rendered  inevitable  this  further  progress  in  the  same  direction. 
The  Church  had  at  last  succeeded  in  opening  the  long-desired 
chasm  between  the  races.  It  had  looked  on  in  silence  while  the 
Archdeacon  of  Ecijawas  bringing  about  the  catastrophe  and  pope 
and  prelate  uttered  no  word  to  stay  the  long  tragedy  of  murder 
and  spoliation,  which  they  regarded  as  an  act  of  God  to  bring  the 
stubborn  Hebrew  into  the  fold  of  Christ.  Henceforth  the  old 
friendliness  between  Jew  and  Christian  was,  for  the  most  part,  a 
thing  of  the  past.  Fanaticism  and  intolerance  were  fairly  aroused, 
to  grow  stronger  with  each  generation  as  fresh  wrongs  and  oppres- 
sion widened  the  abyss  between  believer  and  unbeliever  and  as 
new  preachers  of  discord  arose  to  teach  the  masses  that  kindness 
to  the  Jew  was  sin  against  God.  Thus  gradually  the  Spanish 
character  changed  until  it  was  prepared  to  accept  the  Inquisition, 
which,  by  a  necessary  reaction,  stimulated  the  development  of 
bigotry  until  Spain  became  what  we  shall  see  it  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries. 

That  the  Archdeacon  of  Ecija  was  in  reality  the  remote  founder 
of  the  Inquisition  will  become  evident  when  we  consider  the  for- 
tunes of  the  new  class  created  by  the  massacres  of  1391 — that  of 
the  converted  Jews,  known  as  New  Christians,  Marranos  or  Con- 
versos.  Conversion,  as  we  have  seen,  was  always  favored  by  the 
laws  and  the  convert  was  received  with  a  heartiness  of  social 
equality  which  shows  that  as  yet  there  was  no  antagonism  of 
race  but  only  of  religion.  The  Jew  who  became  a  Christian  was 
eligible  to  any  position  in  Church  or  State  or  to  any  matrimonial 
alliance  for  which  his  abilities  or  character  fitted  him,  but  con- 
versions had  hitherto  been  too  rare  and  the  converts,  for  the 
most  part,  too  humble,  for  them  to  play  any  distinctive  part  in 
the  social  organization.  While  the  massacres,  doubtless,  were 
largely  owing  to  the  attractions  of  disorder  and  pillage,  the  relig- 
ious element  in  them  was  indicated  by  the  fact  that  everywhere 
the  Jews  were  offered  the  alternative  of  baptism  and  that  where 
willingness  was  shown  to  embrace  Christianity,  slaughter  was  at 
once  suspended.  The  pressure  was  so  fierce  and  overwhelming 
that  whole  communities  were  baptized,  as  we  have  seen  at  Bar- 
celona and  Palma.  At  Valencia,  an  official  report,  made  on  July 
14th,  five  days  after  the  massacre,  states  that  all  the  Jews,  except 


112  ^^^  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

a  few  who  were  in  hiding,  had  already  been  baptized;  they  came 
forward  demanding  baptism  in  such  droves  that,  in  all  the 
churches,  the  holy  chrism  was  exhausted  and  the  priests  knew 
not  where  to  get  more,  but  each  morning  the  crismera  would  be 
found  miraculously  filled,  so  that  the  supply  held  out,  nor  was  this 
by  any  means  the  only  sign  that  the  whole  terrible  affair  was  the 
mysterious  work  of  Providence  to  effect  so  holy  an  end.  The 
chiefs  of  the  synagogues  were  included  among  the  converts  and 
we  can  believe  the  statement,  current  at  the  time,  that  in  Valencia 
alone  the  conversions  amounted  to  eleven  thousand.  Moreover 
it  was  not  only  in  the  scenes  of  massacre  that  this  good  work  went 
on.  So  starthng  and  relentless  was  the  slaughter  that  panic 
destroyed  the  unyielding  fortitude  so  often  manifested  by  the 
Jews  under  trial.  In  many  places  they  did  not  wait  for  a  rising 
of  the  Christians  but,  at  the  first  menace,  or  even  in  mere  anticipa- 
tion of  danger,  they  came  eagerly  forward  and  clamored  to  be 
admitted  into  the  Church.  In  Aragon  the  total  number  of  con- 
versions was  reckoned  at  a  hundred  thousand  and  in  Castile  as 
certainly  not  less  and  this  is  probably  no  great  exaggeration.^ 
Neophytes  such  as  these  could  scarce  be  expected  to  prove  stead- 
fast in  their  new  faith. 

In  this  tempest  of  proselytism  the  central  figure  was  San 
Vicente  Ferrer,  to  the  fervor  of  whose  preaching  posterity  attrib- 
uted the  popular  excitement  leading  to  the  massacres.^  This 
doubtless  does  him  an  injustice,  but  the  fact  that  he  was  on  hand 
in  Valencia  on  the  fatal  9th  of  July,  may  perhaps  be  an  indication 
that  the  affair  was  prearranged.  His  eloquence  was  unrivalled; 
immense  crowds  assembled  to  drink  in  his  words ;  no  matter  what 
was  the  native  language  of  the  Ustener,  we  are  told  that  his 
Catalan  was  intelligible  to  Moor,  Greek,  German,  Frenchman, 
Italian  and  Hungarian,  while  the  virtue  which  flowed  from  him 
on  these  occasions  healed  the  infirm  and  repeatedly  restored  the 
dead  to  Ufe.^     Such  was  the  man  who,  during  the  prolonged 


1  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  400-2,  445,  599-604.— Zurita,  Anales  de  Aragon, 
Lib.  X,  cap.  xlvii. 

*  Bernaldez,  Hist,  de  los  Reyes  Catolicos,  cap.  xliii. — The  Jews  likewise 
attributed  their  suiTerings  to  this  "  Friar  Vincent,  from  the  city  of  Valencia,  of 
the  sect  of  Baal  Dominic." — Chronicles  of  Rabbi  Joseph  ben  Joshua  ben  Meir, 
I,  265-7. 

^  Chron.  Petri  de  Areniis,  ann.  1408  (Denifle,  Archiv  fvir  Litt.  und  Kirchen- 
geschichte,  1887,  p.  647). — Coleccion  de  Doc.  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  I,  118. — 
Chron.  Magist.  Ord.  Prsedic.  cap.  xii  (Martene,  Ampliss.  Collect.  VII,  387). — 


Chap.  Ill]  RISE  OF  THE  CONVERSOS  113 

massacres  and  subsequently,  while  the  terror  which  they  excited 
continued  to  dominate  the  unfortunate  race,  traversed  Spain 
from  end  to  end,  with  restless  and  indefatigable  zeal,  preaching, 
baptizing  and  numbering  his  converts  by  the  thousand — on  a 
single  day  in  Toledo  he  is  said  to  have  converted  no  less  than  four 
thousand.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that,  in  some  cases  at  least,  he  may 
have  restrained  the  murderous  mob,  if  only  by  hiding  its  victims 
in  the  baptismal  font. 

The  Jews  slowly  recovered  themselves  from  the  terrible  shock ; 
they  emerged  from  their  concealment  and  endeavored,  with 
characteristic  dauntless  energy,  to  rebuild  their  shattered  fortunes. 
Now,  however,  with  cUminished  numbers  and  exhausted  wealth, 
they  had  to  face  new  enemies.  Not  only  was  Christian  fanaticism 
inflamed  and  growing  even  stronger,  but  the  wholesale  baptisms 
had  created  the  new  class  of  Conversos,  who  were  thenceforward 
to  become  the  deadliest  opponents  of  their  former  brethren. 
Many  chiefs  of  the  synogogue,  learned  rabbis  and  leaders  of  their 
people,  had  cowered  before  the  storm  and  had  embraced  Chris- 
tianity. Whether  their  conversion  was  sincere  or  not,  they  had 
broken  with  the  past  and,  with  the  keen  intelligence  of  their  race, 
they  could  see  that  a  new  career  was  open  to  them  in  which 
energy  and  capacity  could  gratify  ambition,  unfettered  by  the 
hmitations  surrounding  them  in  Judaism.  That  they  should 
hate,  with  an  exceeding  hatred,  those  who  had  proved  true  to  the 
faith  amid  tribulation  was  inevitable.  The  renegade  is  apt  to  be 
bitterer  against  those  whom  he  has  abandoned  than  is  the  oppo- 
nent by  birthright  and,  in  such  a  case  as  this,  consciousness  of  the 
contempt  felt  by  the  steadfast  children  of  Israel  for  the  weaklings 
and  worldlings  who  had  apostatized  from  the  faith  of  their  fathers 
gave  a  keener  edge  to  enmity.  From  early  times  the  hardest  blows 
endured  by  Judaism  had  always  been  dealt  by  its  apostate  chil- 
dren, whose  training  had  taught  them  the  weakest  points  to 
assail  and  whose  necessity  of  self -justification  led  them  to  attack 
these  mercilessly.  In  1085,  Rabbi  Samuel  of  Morocco  came  from 
Fez  and  was  baptized  at  Toledo,  when  he  wrote  a  tract*  to  justify 

Salazar,  Anamnesis  Sanctt.  Hispan.  II,  513. — Tournon,  Hommes  lUustres  de 
rOrdre  de  S.  Dominique,  III,  37.— Mariana,  Hist,  de  Espana,  VI,  423  (Ed.  1790). 
— Alban  Butler,  Vies  des  Saints,  5  Avril. 

'  Rabbi  Sam.  Marrochiani  de  Adventu  Messise  (Mag.  Bib.  Patrum,  Ed.  1618, 
T.  XI,  p.  421).— Jo.  Chr.  Wolfii  Biblioth.  Hebra?se,  I,  1099.— This  tract  was 
translated  from  Arabic  to  Latin  in  1338  by  the  Dominican  Alfonsus  Bonihominis 
and  was  reprinted  so  recently  as  1742,  at  Cassano  by  the  Jesuits. 


114  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

himself  which  had  great  currency  throughout  the  middle  ages. 
Rabbi  Moses,  one  of  the  most  learned  Jews  of  his  time,  who  was 
converted  in  1106,  wrote  a  dissertation  to  prove  that  the  Jews 
had  abandoned  the  laws  of  Moses  while  the  Christians  were 
fulfilling  them/  It  was  Nicholas  de  Rupella,  a  converted  Jew, 
who  started  the  long  crusade  against  the  Talmud  by  pointing 
out,  in  1236,  to  Gregory  IX  the  blasphemies  which  it  contains 
against  the  Savior.^  We  have  seen  the  troubles  excited  in 
Aragon  by  the  disputatious  Converso,  Fray  Pablo  Christia,  and 
he  was  followed  by  another  Dominican  convert,  Ramon  Martin, 
in  his  celebrated  Pugio  Fidei.  In  this  work,  which  remained 
an  authority  for  centuries,  he  piled  up  endless  quotations  from 
Jewish  writers  to  prove  that  the  race  was  properly  reduced  to 
servitude  and  he  stimulated  the  bitterness  of  hatred  by  arguing 
that  Jews  esteemed  it  meritorious  to  slay  and  cheat  and  despoil 
Christians.^ 

The  most  prominent  among  the  new  Conversos  was  Selemoh 
Ha-Levi,  a  rabbi  who  had  been  the  most  intrepid  defender  of  the 
faith  and  rights  of  his  race.  On  the  eve  of  the  massacres,  which 
perhaps  he  foresaw,  and  influenced  by  an  opportune  vision  of  the 
Virgin,  in  1390,  he  professed  conversion,  taking  the  name  of  Pablo 
de  Santa  Maria,  and  was  followed  by  his  two  brothers  and  five 
sons,  founding  a  family  of  commanding  influence.  After  a  course 
in  the  University  of  Paris  he  entered  the  Church,  rising  to  the 
s6e  of  Cartagena  and  then  to  that  of  Burgos,  which  he  transmitted 
to  his  son  Alfonso.  At  the  Cortes  of  Toledo,  in  1406,  he  so 
impressed  Henry  III  that  he  was  appointed  tutor  and  governor 
of  the  Infante  Juan  II,  Mayor  of  Castile  and  a  member  of  the 
Royal  Council.  When,  in  the  course  of  the  same  year,  the  king 
died  he  named  Pablo  among  those  who  were  to  have  the  conduct 
and  education  of  Juan  during  his  minority;  when  the  regent, 
Fernando  of  Antequera,  left  €astile  to  assume  the  crown  of 
Aragon,  he  appointed  Pablo  to  replace  him,  and  the  pope  honored 
him  with  the  position  of  legate  a  latere.  In  1432,  in  his  eighty- 
first  year,  he  wrote  his  Scrutinium  Scripturarum  against  his  former 
co-reUgionists.    It  is  more  moderate  than  is  customary  in  these 


*  Mag.  Bibl.  Patrum,  T.  XII,  P.  ii,  p.  SS'S.  For  the  zeal  of  the  convert  to 
induce  his  brethren  to  follow  him,  see  Hermanni  Opusc.  de  Conver^ione  sua, 
cap.  xvi  (Migne's  Patrol.  Lat.  T.  CLXX,  p.  828). 

*  D'Argentre,  Collect.  Judic.  de  novis  Erroribus,  I,  i,  132. 
'  Pugionis  Fidei  P.  iii,  Dist.  iii,  cap.  21,  22. 


Chap.  Ill]  OPPRESSION  OF  THE  JEWS  115 

controversial  writings  and  seems  to  have  been  composed  rather 
as  a  justification  of  his  own  course/ 

Another  prominent  Converso  was  the  Rabbi  Jehoshua  Ha- 
Lorqui,  who  took  the  name  of  Geronimo  de  Santafe  .and  founded 
a  family  almost  as  powerful  as  the  Santa  Marias.  He  too  showed 
his  zeal  in  the  book  named  Hebrceomastix,  in  which  he  exaggerated 
the  errors  of  the  Jews  in  the  manner  best  adapted  to  excite  the 
execration  of  Christians.  Another  leading  Converso  family  was 
that  of  the  Caballerias,  of  which  eight  brothers  were  baptized 
and  one  of  them,  Bonafos,  who  called  himself  Micer  Pedro  de  la 
Caballeria,  wrote,  in  1464,  the  Celo  de  Cristo  contra  los  Judios  in 
which  he  treated  them  with  customary  obloquy  as  the  synagogue 
of  Satan  and  argues  that  the  hope  of  Christianity  Hes  in  their 
ruin.2  In  thus  stimulating  the  spirit  of  persecuting  fanaticism  we 
shall  see  how  these  men  sowed  the  wind  and  reaped  the  whirlwind. 

Meanwhile  the  position  of  the  Jews  grew  constantly  more 
deplorable.  Decimated  and  impoverished,  they  were  met  by  a 
steadily  increasing  temper  of  hatred  and  oppression.  The  mas- 
sacres of  1391  had  been  followed  by  a  constant  stream  of  emigra- 
tion to  Granada  and  Portugal,  which  threatened  to  complete 
the  depopulation  of  the  aljamas  and,  with  the  view  of  arresting 
this,  Henry  III,  in  1395,  promised  them  the  royal  protection  for 
the  future.  The  worth  of  that  promise  was  seen  in  1406,  when 
in  Cordova  the  remnant  of  the  Juderia  was  again  assailed  by  the 
mob,  hundreds  of  Jews  were  slain  and  their  houses  were  sacked 
and  burnt.  It  is  true  that  the  king  ordered  the  magistrates  to 
punish  the  guilty  and  expressed  his  displeasure  by  a  fine  of 
twenty-four  4housand  doblas  on  the  city,  but  he  had,  the  year 
before,  in  the  Cortes  of  1405,  assented  to  a  series  of  laws  depriving 
the  Jews  at  once  of  property  and  of  defence,  by  declaring  void  all 
bonds  of  Christians  held  by  them,  reducing  to  one-half  all  debts 
due  to  them  and  requiring  a  Christian  witness  and  the  debtor's 
acknowledgement  for  the  other  half,  annulling  their  privileges  in 
the  trial  of  mixed  cases  and  requiring  the  hateful  red  circle  to  be 
worn  except  in  travelling,  when  it  could  be  laid  aside  in  view  of 
the  murders  which  it  invited.^ 

'  Scrutinii  S'cripturarum  P.  II.  See  Graetz  (VIII,  79)  for  a  full  account  of 
Selemoh  Ha-I;evi  and  of  the  controversies  to  which  his  apostasy  gave  rise. 

^  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  447;  III,  lOS-9.— P.  de  la  Caballerfa,  Zelus  Christf 
contra  Judaeos  (Venetiis,  1592). — Libro  Verde  de  Aragon  (Revista  de  Espafia, 
Tom.  CV,  p.  571). 

*  Amadorde  los  Rios,  II,  413-16, 419-22.— Cortes  de  losantiguos  Reinos,  II,  544. 


116  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

This  was  cruel  enough,  yet  it  was  but  a  foretaste  of  what  was  in 
store.  In  1410,  when  the  Queen-regent  Dona  Catahna  was  in 
Segovia,  there  was  revealed  a  sacrilegious  attempt  by  some  Jews 
to  maltreat  a  consecrated  host.  The  story  was  that  the  sacristan 
of  San  Fagun  had  pledged  it  as  security  for  a  loan — the  street  in 
which  the  bargain  was  made  acquiring  in  consequence  the  name 
of  Calle  del  Mai  Consejo.  The  Jews  cast  it  repeatedly  into  a 
boiling  caldron,  when  it  persistently  arose  and  remained  sus- 
pended in  the  air,  a  miracle  which  so  impressed  some  of  them  that 
they  were  converted  and  carried  the  form  to  the  Dominican  con- 
vent and  related  the  facts.  The  wafer  was  piously  administered 
in  communion  to  a  child  who  died  in  three  days.  Dofia  Catalina 
instituted  a  vigorous  investigation  which  implicated  Don  Mayr, 
one  of  the  most  prominent  Jews  in  the  kingdom,  whose  services 
as  physician  had  prolonged  the  life  of  the  late  king.  He  was  sub- 
jected to  torture  sufficient  to  elicit  not  only  his  participation  in 
the  sacrilege  but  also  that  he  had  poisoned  his  royal  master. 
The  convicts  were  drawn  through  the  streets  and  quartered,  as 
were  also  some  others  who  in  revenge  had  attempted  to  poison 
Juan  de  Tordesillas,  the  Bishop  of  Segovia.  The  Jewish  syna- 
gogue was  converted  into  the  church  of  Corpus  Christi  and  an 
annual  procession  still  commemorates  the  event.  San  Vicente 
Ferrer  turned  it  to  good  account,  for  we  are  told  that  in  1411  he 
almost  destroyed  the  remnants  of  Judaism  in  the  bishopric.^ 

The  affair  made  an  immense  impression  especially,  it  would 
seem,  on  San  Vicente,  convincing  him  of  the  advisability  of  forcing 
the  Jews  into  the  bosom  of  the  Church  by  reducing  them  to  despair. 
At  Ayllon,  in  1411,  he  represented  to  the  regents  the  necessity 
of  further  repressive  legislation  and  his  eloquence  was  convincing.^ 
The  Ordenamiento  de  Dona  Catalina,  promulgated  in  1412  and 
drawn  up  by  Pablo  de  Santa  Maria  as  Chancellor  of  Castile,  was 
the  result.  By  this  rigorous  measure,  Jews  and  Moors,  under 
savage  and  ruinous  penalties,  were  not  only  required  to  wear  the 
distinguishing  badges,  but  to  dress  in  coarse  stuffs  and  not  to 
shave  or  to  cut  the  hair  round.  They  could  not  change  their 
abodes  and  any  nobleman  or  gentleman  receiving  them  on  his 


*  Fortalicium  Fidei,  fol.  clxxii-iii. — Colmenares,  Historia  de  Segovia,  cap. 
xxviii. — Garibay,  Compendio  historial  de  Espana,  Lib.  xv,  cap.  58. — Rodrigo, 
Historia  verdadera  de  la  Inquisicion,  II,  44. — Padre  Fidel  Fita  (Boletin,  IX, 
371). 

^  Cronica  de  Juan  II,  ano  v,  cap.  xxii. 


Chap.  Ill]  OPPRESSION  OF  THE  JEWS  II7 

lands  was  heavily  fined  and  obliged  to  return  them  whence  they 
came,  while  expatriation  was  forbidden  under  pain  of  slavery. 
Not  only  were  the  higher  employments  of  farming  the  revenues, 
tax-collecting,  and  practising  as  physicians  and  surgeons  for- 
bidden, but  any  position  in  the  households  of  the  great  and 
numerous  trades,  such  as  those  of  apothecaries,  grocers,  farriers, 
blacksmiths,  peddlers,  carpenters,  tailors,  barbers,  and  butchers. 
They  could  not  carry  arms  or  hire  Christians  to  work  in  their 
houses  or  on  their  lands.  That  they  should  be  forbidden  to  eat, 
drink  or  bathe  wdth  Christians,  or  be  with  them  in  feasts  and  wed- 
dings, or  serve  as  god-parents  was  a  matter  of  course  under  the 
canon  law,  but  now  even  private  conversation  between  the  races 
was  prohibited,  nor  could  they  sell  provisions  to  Christians  or 
keep  a  shop  or  ordinary  for  them.  It  is  perhaps  significant  that 
nothing  was  said  about  usury.  Money-lending  was  almost  the 
only  occupation  remaining  open,  while  the  events  of  the  last 
twenty  years  had  left  httle  capital  wherewith  to  carry  it  on  and 
the  laws  of  1405  had  destroyed  all  sense  of  security  in  making 
loans.  They  were  moreover  deprived  of  the  guarantees  so  long 
enjoyed  and  were  subjected  to  the  exclusive  jurisdiction,  civil 
and  criminal,  of  the  Christians.'  They  were  thus  debarred  from 
the  use  of  their  skill  and  experience  in  the  higher  pursuits,  profes- 
sional and  industrial,  and  were  condemned  to  the  lowest  and  rudest 
forms  of  labor;  in  fine,  a  wall  was  built  around  them  from  which 
their  only  escape  was  through  the  baptismal  font.  Fernando  of 
Antequera  carried  the  law  in  all  its  essentials  to  Aragon  and  King 
Duarte  adopted  it  in  Portugal,  so  that  it  ruled  the  whole  Penin- 
sula except  the  Httle  kingdom  of  Navarre  where  Judaism  was 
already  almost  extinct.  It  is  significant  that  Fernando,  in  pro- 
mulgating it  in  Majorca,  alleged  in  justification  the  complaints 
of  the  inquisitors  as  to  the  social  intercourse  between  Jews  and 
Christians.^ 

While  San  Vicente  and  Pablo  de  Santa  Maria  were  thus  engaged 
in  reducing  to  despair  the  Jews  of  Castile,  the  other  great  Con- 
verso,  Geronimo  de  Santafe,  was  laboring  in  a  more  legitimate 
way  for  their  conversion  in  Aragon.  He  had  been  appointed 
physician  to  the  Avignonese  pope,  Benedict  XIII,  who  had  been 
obliged  to  cross  the  Pyrenees,  and  who,  on  November  25,  1412, 

*  Fortalicium  Fidei,   fol.   clxxvi-viii. — Amador    de  los  Rios,   II,   496-502. — 
Ferndndez  y  Gonzalez,  Estado  de  los  Mudejares,  pp.  400-5. 
^  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  503,  515.— ViUanueva,  XXII,  258. 


118  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

summoned  the  al jamas  of  Aragon  to  send,  in  the  following  Jan- 
uary, their  most  learned  rabbis  to  San  Mateo,  near  Tortosa,  for  a 
disputation  with  Geronimo  on  the  proposition  that  the  Messiah 
had  come.  Fourteen  rabbis,  selected  from  the  synagogues  of  all 
Spain,  with  Vidal  ben  Veniste  at  their  head,  accepted  the  chal- 
lenge. The  debate  opened,  February  7,  1414,  under  the  presi- 
dency of  Benedict  himself,  who  warned  them  that  the  truth  of 
Christianity  was  not  to  be  discussed  but  only  sixteen  propositions 
put  forward  by  Geronimo,  thus  placing  them  wholly  on  the  defen- 
sive. Despite  this  disadvantage  they  held  their  ground  tenaci- 
ously during  seventy-nine  sessions,  prolonged  through  a  term  of 
twenty-one  months.  Geronimo  covered  himself  with  glory  by  his 
unrivalled  cUalectical  subtilty  and  exhaustless  stores  of  learning 
and  his  triumph  was  shown  by  his  producing  a  division  between 
his  opponents.^ 

During  this  colloquy,  in  the  summer  of  1413,  some  two  hundred 
Jews  of  the  synagogues  of  Saragossa,  Calatayud  and  Alcaiiiz 
professed  conversion.  In  1414  there  was  a  still  more  abundant 
harvest.  A  hundred  and  twenty  families  of  Calatayud,  Daroca, 
Fraga  and  Barbastro  presented  themselves  for  baptism  and  these 
were  followed  by  the  whole  aljamas  of  Alcaiiiz,  Caspe,  Maella, 
Lerida,  Tamarit  and  Alcolea,  amounting  to  about  thirty-five 
hundred  souls.  The  repressive  legislation  was  accomplishing  its 
object  and  hopes  were  entertained  that,  with  the  aid  of  the 
inspired  teaching  of  San  Vicente,  Judaism  would  become  extinct 
throughout  Spain.^  To  stimulate  the  movement  by  an  increase 
of  severity  towards  the  recalcitrant,  Benedict  issued  his  consti- 
tution Etsi  doctorihus  gentium,  in  which  he  virtually  embodied  the 
Ordenamiento  de  Doha  Catalina,  thus  giving  to  its  system  of  ter- 
rible repression  the  sanction  of  Church  as  well  as  of  State.  He 
further  forbade  the  possession  of  the  Talmud  or  of  any  books 
contrary  to  the  Christian  faith,  ordering  the  bishops  and  inquis- 
itors to  make  semi-annual  inquests  of  the  aljamas  and  to  proceed 
against  all  found  in  possession  of  such  books.    No  Jew  should  even 

*  The  Spanish  historians  claim  that  all  the  rabbis,  except  Joseph  Albo  and 
"\'idal  Ferrer,  acknowledged  the  truth  of  Christianity  and  abjured  the  errors  of 
Judaism  (Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  438-42;  Zurita,  Anales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  xii, 
cap.  xlv),  but  Graetz  (Geschichte  der  Juden,  VIII,  120-1)  states  with  greater 
probability,  that  the  only  concession  made  by  the  twelve  was  that  the  Haggadah 
passages  of  the  Talmud  are  of  no  authority  and  even  from  this  Ferrer  and  Albo 
dissented. 

*  Zurita,  Anales,  Lib.  xii,  cap.  xlv. 


Chap.  Ill]  OPPMESSION  OF  THE  JEWS  119 

bind  a  book  in  which  the  name  of  Christ  or  the  Virgin  appeared. 
Princes  were  exhorted  to  grant  them  no  favors  or  privileges  and 
the  faithful  at  large  were  commanded  not  to  rent  or  sell  houses 
to  them  or  to  hold  companionship  or  conversation  with  them. 
Moreover  they  were  prohibited  to  exercise  usury  and  thrice  a  year 
they  were  to  be  preached  to  and  warned  to  abandon  their  errors. 
The  bishops  in  general  were  ordered  to  see  to  the  strict  enforce- 
ment of  all  these  provisions  and  the  execution  of  the  bull  was 
specially  confided  to  Gonzalo,  Bishop  of  Sigiienza,  son  of  the  great 
Converse,  Pablo  de  Santa  Maria.  As  the  utterance  of  the  Anti- 
pope  Benedict,  this  searching  and  cruel  legislation,  designed  to 
reduce  the  Jews  to  the  lowest  depths  of  poverty  and  despair,  was 
current  only  in  the  lands  of  his  obedience,  but  when  his  triumph- 
ant rival,  Martin  V,  confirmed  the  charge  confided  to  the  Bishop 
of  Sigiienza  he  accepted  and  ratified  the  act  of  Benedict.^  Nay 
more;  in  1434,  Alfonso  de  Santa  Maria,  Bishop  of  Burgos,  another 
son  of  the  Converso  Pablo,  when  a  delegate  to  the  council  of  Basle, 
procured  the  passage  of  a  decree  in  the  same  sense.^  The  quarrel 
of  the  council  with  the  papacy,  it  is  true,  deprived  its  utterance 
of  cecumenic  authority,  but  this  deficiency  was  supplied  when, 
in  1442,  Eugenius  IV  issued  a  bull  which  was  virtually  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  law  of  Doiia  Catalina  and  of  the  constitution  of  Bene- 
dict XIII,  while  this  was  followed,  in  1447,  by  an  even  more 
rigorous  one  of  Nicholas  V.^  Thus  all  factions  of  the  Church, 
however  much  they  might  wrangle  on  other  points,  cheerfully 
united  in  rendering  the  hfe  of  the  Jew  as  miserable  as  possible  and 
in  forbidding  princes  to  show  him  favor.  This  was  symbolized 
when,  in  1418,  the  legate  of  Martin  V  was  solemnly  received  in 
Gerona  and  the  populace,  with  inerring  instinct,  celebrated  the 
closing  of  the  great  Schism  and  the  reunion  of  the  Church  by 
playfully  sacking  the  Juderia,  though  the  royal  officials,  blind  to 
the  piety  of  the  demonstration,  severely  punished  the  perpe- 
trators.^ 

The  immediate  effect  of  this  policy  corresponded  to  the  inten- 
tions of  its  authors,  though  its  ultimate  results  can  scarce  have 
been  foreseen.      The  Jews  were  humihated  and  impoverished. 

1  Amador  de  los  Rios,  II,  627-53;  III,  38. 

'  Concil.  Basiliens.  Sess.  xix,  cap  v,  vi  (Harduin.  VIII,  1190-3). 

'  Raynald.  Annal.  ann.  1442,  n.  15.— Wadding,  Annal.  Minor,  ann.  1447,  n.  10. 

*  Vuianueva,  XIV,  30. 


120  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

Despite  their  losses  by  massacre  and  conversion,  they  still  formed 
an  important  portion  of  the  population,  with  training  and  apti- 
tudes to  render  service  to  the  State  but,  debarred  from  the  pursuits 
for  which  they  had  been  fitted,  they  were  crippled  both  for  their 
own  recuperation  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  public.  The  economic 
effect  was  intensified  by  the  inclusion  of  the  Mudejares  in  the 
repressive  legislation;  commerce  and  manufactures  decayed  and 
many  products  which  Spain  had  hitherto  exported  she  was  now 
obliged  to  import  at  advanced  prices/ 

On  the  other  hand  the  Conversos  saw  opened  to  them  a  career 
fitted  to  stimulate  and  satisfy  ambition.  Confident  in  their 
powers,  with  intellectual  training  superior  to  that  of  the  Chris- 
tians, they  aspired  to  the  highest  places  in  the  courts,  in  the 
universities,  in  the  Church  and  in  the  State.  Wealth  and  power 
rendered  them  eligible  suitors  and  they  entered  into  matri- 
monial alliances  with  the  noblest  houses  in  the  land,  many  of 
which  had  been  impoverished  by  the  shrinkage  of  the  revenues 
derived  from  their  Jewish  subjects.  Alfonso  de  Santa  Maria,  in 
procuring  the  decree  of  Basle,  was  careful  to  insert  in  it  a  recom- 
mendation of  marriage  between  converts  and  Christians  as  the 
surest  means  of  preserving  the  purity  of  the  faith,  and  the  advice 
was  extensively  followed.  Thus  the  time  soon  came  when  there 
were  few  of  the  ancient  nobility  of  Spain  who  were  not  connected, 
closely  or  remotely,  with  the  Jew.  We  hear  of  marriages  with 
Lunas,  Mendozas,  Villahermosas  and  others  of  the  proudest 
houses.^  As  early  as  1449  a  petition  to  Lope  de  Barrientos, 
Bishop  of  Cuenca,  by  the  Conversos  of  Toledo,  enumerates  all  the 
noblest  families  of  Spain  as  being  of  Jewish  blood  and  among  others 
the  Henriquez,  from  whom  the  future  Ferdinand  the  Catholic 
descended,  through  his  mother  Juana  Henriquez.^  It  was  the  same 
in  the  Church,  where  we  have  seen  the  rank  attained  by  the  Santa 
Marias.  Juan  de  Torquemada,  Cardinal  of  San  Sisto,  was  of 
Jewish  descent  and  so,  of  course,  was  his  nephew,  the  first  inquis- 
itor-general,^ as  was  likewise  Diego  Deza,  the  second  inquisitor- 
general,  as  well  as  Hernando  de  Talavera,  Archbishop  of  Granada. 
It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  examples,  for  in  every  career  the 
vigor  and  keenness  of  the  Jews  made  them  conspicuous  and,  in 


^  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  12. 

^  I>ibro  Verde  de  Aragon  (Revista  de  Espana,  CVI,  257,  269). 

'  Caballero,  Noticias  del  Doctor  Alonso  Dfaz  de  Montalvo,  p.  251. 

*  Pulgar,  Claros  Varones,  Tit.  xviii. 


Chap.  Ill]  VICISSITUDES  121 

embracing  Christianity,  they  seemed  to  be  opening  a  new  avenue 
for  the  development  of  the  race  in  which  it  would  become  domi- 
nant over  the  Old  Christians;  in  fac.t,  an  Italian  nearly  contem- 
porary describes  them  as  virtually  ruling  Spain,  while  secretly 
perverting  the  faith  by  their  covert  adherance  to  Judaism/  This 
triumph  however  was  short-lived.  Their  success  showed  that 
thus  far  there  had  been  no  antagonism  of  race  but  only  of  religion. 
This  speedily  changed;  the  hatred  and  contempt  which,  as 
apostates,  they  lavished  on  the  faithful  sons  of  Israel  reacted  on 
themselves.  It  was  impossible  to  stimulate  popular  abhorrence 
of  the  Jew  without  at  the  same  time  stimulating  the  envy  and 
jealousy  excited  by  the  ostentation  and  arrogance  of  the  New 
Christians.  What  was  the  use  of  humiliating  and  exterminating 
the  Jew  if  these  upstarts  were  not  only  to  take  his  place  in 
grinding  the  people  as  tax-gatherers  but  were  to  bear  rule  in 
court  and  camp  and  church? 

Meanwhile  the  remnant  of  the  Jews  were  slowly  but  indomi- 
tably recovering  their  position.  It  was  much  easier  to  enact  the 
Ordenamiento  de  Dona  Catalina  than  to  enforce  it  and,  like  much 
previous  legislation,  it  was  growing  obsolete  in  many  respects. 
In  the  early  days  of  Juan  II,  Abrahem  Benaviste  was  virtually 
finance  minister  and,  when  the  Infante  Henry  of  Aragon  seized  the 
king  at  Tordesillas  and  carried  him  off,  he  justified  the  act  by 
saying  that  it  was  because  the  government  was  in  the  hands  of 
Abrahem.^  In  fact  there  are  indications  of  a  reaction  in  which 
the  Jews  were  used  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  menacing  growth  of 
Converso  influence.  When,  in  1442,  the  cruel  bull  of  Eugenius 
IV  was  received,  although  it  scarce  contained  more  than  the  laws 
of  1412  and  the  bull  of  Benedict  XIII,  Alvaro  de  Luna,  the  all- 
powerful  favorite,  not  only  refused  to  obey  it  but  proceeded  to 
give  legal  sanction  to  the  neglect  into  which  those  statutes  had 
fallen.  He  induced  his  master  to  issue  the  Pragmatica  of  Arevalo, 
April  6,  1443,  condemning  the  refusal  of  many  persons  to  buy  or 
sell  with  Jews  and  Moors  or  to  labor  for  them  in  the  fields,  under 
color  of  a  bull  of  Eugenius  IV,  published  at  Toledo  during  his 
absence.  Punishment  is  threatened  for  these  audacities,  for  the 
bull  and  the  laws  provide  that  Jews  and  Moors  and  Christians 
shall  dwell  together  in  harmony  and  no  one  is  to  injure  or  slay 
them.     It  was  not  intended  to  prevent  Jews  and  Moors  and 

'  Tristan.  Caraccioli  Epist.  de  Inquisit.  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.,  XXII,  97), 
'  Cronica  de  Juan  II,  ano  xiv,  cap.  ii. 


122  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

Christians  from  dealing  together,  nor  that  the  former  should  not 
follow  industries  base  and  servile,  such  as  all  manner  of  mechan- 
ical trades,  and  Christians  can  serve  them  for  proper  wages  and 
guard  their  flocks  and  labor  for  them  in  the  fields,  and  they  can 
prescribe  for  Christians  if  the  medicines  are  compounded  by- 
Christians.^ 

Thus  a  revulsion  had  taken  place  in  favor  of  the  proscribed  race 
which  threatened  to  undo  the  work  of  Vicente  Ferrer  and  the  Con- 
versos.  It  was  in  vain  that,  in  1451,  Nicholas  V  issued  another 
bull  repeating  and  confirming  that  of  Eugenius  IV,^  It  received 
no  attention  and,  \mder  the  protection  of  Alvaro  de  Luna,  the 
Jews  made  good  use  of  the  breathing-space  to  reconstruct  their 
shattered  industries  and  to  demonstrate  their  utility  to  the  State. 
The  conspiracy  wliich  sent  Alvaro  to  the  block,  in  1453,  was  a 
severe  blow  but,  on  the  accession  of  Henry  IV,  in  1454,  they 
secured  the  good-will  of  his  favorites  and  even  procured  the 
restoration  of  some  old  privileges,  the  most  important  of  which 
was  the  permission  to  have  their  own  judges.  One  element  in  this 
was  the  influence  enjoyed  by  the  royal  physician  Jacob  Aben- 
Nuhez  on  whom  was  conferred  the  office  of  Rabb  Mayor.^  In 
the  virtual  anarchy  of  the  period,  however,  when  every  noble 
was  a  law  imto  himself,  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  far  royal 
decrees  were  effective,  or  to  postulate  any  general  conditions.  In 
1458,  the  Constable  Velasco  orders  his  vassals  of  the  town  of 
Haro  to  observe  the  law  forbidding  Christians  to  labor  for  Jews 
and  Moors,  but  he  makes  the  wise  exception  that  they  may  do  so 
when  they  can  find  no  other  work  wherewith  to  support  them- 
selves. Even  under  these  concUtions  the  superior  energy  of  the 
non-Christian  races  was  rapidly  acquiring  for  them  the  most  pro- 
ductive lands,  if  we  may  trust  a  decree  of  the  town  of  Haro,  in 
1453,  forbidding  Christians  to  sell  their  estates  to  Moors  and  Jews, 
for  if  this  were  not  stopped  the  Christians  would  have  no  ground 
to  cultivate,  as  the  Moors  already  held  all  the  best  of  the  irrigated 
lands.* 

The  nobles  had  seen  the  cUsadvantage  of  the  sternly  oppressive 
laws  and  disregarded  them  to  their  own  great  benefit,  thus  raising 
the  envy  of  the  districts  obliged  to  observe  them,  for  the  Cortes  of 
1462  petitioned  Henry  to  restore  liberty  of  trade  between  Chris- 
tian and  Jew,  alleging  the  inconvenience  caused  by  the  restriction 

^  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  583-9.  ^  Raynald.  Annal.  ann.  1451,  n.  5. 

3  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  115-16.         ■•  Boletin,  XXVI,  468-72. 


Chap.  Ill]  VICISSITUDES  123 

and  the  depopulation  of  the  crown  lands  for,  as  trade  was  per- 
mitted in  the  lands  of  the  nobles,  the  Jews  were  concentrating 
there.  When  further  the  Cortes  asked  that  Jews  should  be  per- 
mitted to  return  with  their  property  and  trades  to  the  cities  in  the 
royal  domains  from  which  they  had  been  expelled,  it  indicates  that 
popular  aversion  was  becoming  directed  to  the  Converses  rather 
than  to  the  Jews/  It  may  be  questioned  whether  it  was  to  pre- 
serve the  advantage  here  indicated  or  to  gain  popular  favor,  that 
the  revolted  nobles,  in  1460,  demanded  of  Henry  that  he  should 
banish  from  his  kingdoms  all  Moors  and  Jews  who  contaminated 
rehgion  and  corrupted  morals  and  that,  when  they  deposed  him, 
in  1465,  at  Avila  and  elevated  to  the  throne  the  child  Alfonso,  the 
Concordia  Com-promisoria  which  they  dictated,  annulled  the 
Pragmatica  of  Arevalo  and  restored  to  vigor  the  laws  of  1412 
and  the  bull  of  Benedict  XIII.  This  frightened  the  Jews,  who 
offered  to  Henry  an  immense  sum  for  Gibraltar,  where  they  pro- 
posed to  establish  a  city  of  refuge,  but  he  refused.^ 

The  fright  was  superfluous  for,  in  the  turbulence  of  the  time, 
the  repressive  legislation  was  speedily  becoming  obsolete.  When 
the  reforming  Council  of  Aranda,  in  1473,  made  but  a  single  refer- 
ence to  Jews  and  Moors  and  this  was  merely  to  forbid  them  to 
pursue  their  industries  publicly  on  Sundays  and  feast  days,  with 
a  threat  against  the  judges  who,  through  bribery,  permitted  this 
desecration,  it  is  fair  to  conclude  that  the  law  of  1412,  if  observed 
at  all,  was  enforced  only  in  scattered  localities.^  That  the  restric- 
tions on  commercial  activity  were  obsolete  is  manifest  from  a 
complaint,  in  1475,  to  the  sovereigns,  from  the  Jews  of  Medina 
del  Pomar,  setting  forth  that  they  had  been  accustomed  to  pur- 
chase in  Bilbao,  from  foreign  traders,  cloths  and  other  merchan- 
dise which  they  carried  through  the  kingdom  for  sale,  until 
recently  the  port  had  restricted  all  dealings  with  foreigners  to  the 
resident  Jews,  whereupon  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  ordered  these 
regulations  rescinded  unless  the  authorities  could  show  good 
reasons  within  fifteen  days.* 

With  the  settlement  of  affairs  under  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
the  position  of  the  Jews  grew  distinctly  worse.     Although  Don 

^  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  III,  717. 

^  Colmenares,  Hist,  de  Segovia,  cap.  xxxi,  ?  9. — Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  164- 
7. — Fernandez  y  Gonzdlez,  p.  213. 

'  Concil.  Arandens.  ann.  1473,  cap.  vii  (Aguirre,  V,  345). 
*  Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  I,  45. 


124  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

Abraham  Senior,  one  of  Isabella's  most  trusted  counsellors,  was 
a  Jew,  her  piety  led  her  to  revive  and  carry  out  the  repressive 
policy  of  San  Vicente  Ferrer  and,  in  codifying  the  royal  edicts  in 
the  Ordenanzas  Reales,  confirmed  by  the  Cortes  of  Toledo  in  1480, 
all  the  savage  legislation  of  1412  was  re-enacted,  except  that 
relating  to  mechanical  trades,  and  the  vigor  of  the  government 
gave  assurance  that  the  laws  would  be  enforced,  as  we  have  seen 
in  the  matter  of  the  separation  of  the  Juderias.^  Ferdinand's 
assent  to  this  shows  that  he  adopted  the  policy  and,  in  his  own 
dominions,  by  an  edict  of  March  6,  1482,  he  withdrew  all  licenses 
to  Jews  to  lay  aside  the  dangerous  badge  when  travelling,  and  he 
further  prohibited  the  issuing  of  such  hcenses  under  penalty  of  a 
thousand  florins.  Another  edict  of  December  15,  1484,  recites 
that  at  Cella,  a  village  near  Teruel,  some  Jews  had  recently  taken 
temporary  residence;  as  there  is  no  Juderia,  in  order  to  avoid 
danger  to  souls,  he  orders  them  driven  out  and  that  none  be 
allowed  to  remain  more  than  twenty-four  hours  under  pain  of  a 
hundred  florins  and  a  hundred  lashes.^ 

This  recrudescence  of  oppression  probably  had  an  influence  on 
the  people,  for  there  came  a  revulsion  of  feeling  adverse  to  the 
proscribed  race,  inflamed  by  the  ceaseless  labors  of  the  frailes 
whose  denunciatory  eloquence  knew  no  cessation.  Under  these 
circumstances  the  Jews  and  Moors  seem  to  have  had  recourse  to 
the  Roman  curia,  always  ready  to  speculate  by  selling  privileges, 
whether  it  had  power  to  grant  them  or  not,  and  then  to  withdraw 
them  for  a  consideration.  We  shall  have  ample  occasion  to  see 
hereafter  prolonged  transactions  of  the  kind  arising  from  the 
operation  of  the  Inquisition;  those  with  the  Jews  at  this  time 
seem  to  have  been  closed  by  a  motu  proprio  of  May  31,  1484, 
doubtless  procured  from  Sixtus  IV  by  pressure  from  the  sover- 
eigns, in  which  the  pope  expresses  his  displeasure  at  learning  that 
in  Spain,  especially  in  Andalusia,  Christians,  Moors  and  Jews 
dwell  together;  that  there  is  no  tUstinction  of  vestments,  that  the 
Christians  act  as  servants  and  nurses,  the  Moors  and  Jews  as  phy- 
sicians, apothecaries,  farmers  of  ecclesiastical  revenues  etc.,  pre- 
tending that  they  hold  papal  privileges  to  that  effect.  Any  such 
privileges  he  withdraws  and  he  orders  all  officials,  secular  and 
ecclesiastical,  to  enforce  strictly  the  canonical  decrees  respecting 


*  Ordenanzas  Reales,  viii,  iii,  1-41. 

*  Archivo  general  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Regist.  3684,  fol.  10,  33. 


Chap.  Ill]  DECLINE  OF  JUDAISM  125 

the  proscribed  races/  Under  these  impulses  the  municipahties, 
which,  in  1462,  had  petitioned  to  have  the  proscriptive  laws 
repealed  now  enforced  them  with  renewed  vigor  and  even  exceeded 
them,  as  at  Balmaseda,  where  the  Jews  were  ordered  to  depart. 
They  appealed  to  the  throne,  representing  that  they  lived  in  daily 
fear  for  life  and  property  and  begged  the  royal  protection, 
which  was  duly  granted/ 

Subjected  to  these  perpetual  and  harassing  vicissitudes,  the  Jews 
had  greatly  declined  both  in  numbers  and  wealth.  An  assess- 
ment of  the  poll-tax,  made  in  1474,  shows  that  in  the  dominions 
of  Castile  there  were  only  about  twelve  thousand  families  left, 
or  from  fifty  to  sixty  thousand  souls,  although  there  were  still 
two  hundred  and  sixteen  separate  aljamas.  Their  weakness  and 
poverty  are  indicated  by  the  fact  that  such  communities  as  those 
of  Seville,  Toledo,  Cordova,  Burgos,  etc.,  paid  much  less  than 
inconspicuous  places  prior  to  1391.  The  aljama  of  Ciudad-Real, 
which  had  paid,  in  1290,  a  tax  of  26,486  maravedis,  had  disap- 
peared; the  only  one  left  in  La  Mancha  was  Almagro,  assessed  at 
800  maravedis.^  The  work  of  Martinez  and  San  Vicente  Ferrer 
was  accomplishing  itself.  Popular  abhorrence  had  grown,  while 
the  importance  of  the  Jews  as  a  source  of  public  revenue  had 
fatally  diminished.  The  end  was  evidently  approaching,  but  a 
consideration  of  its  horrors  must  be  postponed  while  we  glance 
at  the  condition  of  the  renegades  who  had  sought  shelter  from  the 
storm  by  adopting  the  faith  of  the  oppressor. 

The  Conversos,  in  steadily  increasing  numbers,  had  successfully 
worked  out  their  destiny,  accumulating  honors,  wealth  and 
popular  hatred.  In  both  Castile  and  Aragon  they  filled  lucrative 
and  influential  positions  in  the  pubhc  service  and  their  preponder- 
ance in  Church  and  State  was  constantly  becoming  more  marked. 
In  Catalonia,  however,  they  were  regarded  with  contempt  and, 
though  the  boast  that  Catalan  blood  was  never  polluted  by  inter- 
mixture is   exaggerated,  it  is  not  wholly  without    foundation. 

^  Padre  Fidel  Fita,  Boletin,  XV,  44,3. 

^  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  288-90.— Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  I,  134. 

'  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  170-1. — Merchan,  La  Juderfa  y  la  Inquisicion  de 
Ciudad-Real,  I,  647. 

Lindo  (Hist,  of  the  Jews  of  Spain,  p.  244)  estimates  the  Jews  of  Castile  at  this 
period  at  between  200,000  and  300,000  over  16  years  of  age.  Graetz  assumes 
the  total  number  as  150,000;  Isidore  Loeb  at  50,000  or  a  little  more. — Revue 
des  Etudes  Juives,   1887,  p.  168. 


126  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

The  same  is  true  of  Valencia,  where  intermarriage  only  occurred 
among  the  rural  population.  Throughout  Spain,  moreover,  the 
farming  of  all  the  more  important  sources  of  revenue  passed  into 
their  hands  and  thus  they  inherited  the  odium  as  well  as  the 
profits  of  the  Jews/ 

The  beginning  of  the  end  was  seen  at  Toledo  where,  in  1449, 
Alvaro  de  Luna  made  a  demand  on  the  city  for  a  million  mara- 
vedis  for  the  defence  of  the  frontier  and  it  was  refused.  He 
ordered  the  tax-gatherers  to  collect  it.  They  were  Conversos  and 
when  they  made  the  attempt  the  citizens  arose  and  sacked  and 
burnt  not  only  their  houses  but  those  of  the  Conversos  in  general. 
The  latter  organized  in  self-defence  and  endeavored  to  suppress 
the  disturbance  but  were  defeated,  when  those  who  were  wealthy 
were  tortured  and  immense  booty  was  obtained.  In  vain  Juan  II 
sought  to  punish  the  city;  the  triumphant  citizens,  with  the  magis- 
trates at  their  head,  organized  a  court  in  which  the  question  was 
argued  whether  the  Conversos  could  hold  any  public  office.  In 
spite  of  the  evident  illegality  of  this  and  of  active  opposition  led 
by  the  famous  Lope  de  Barrientos,  Bishop  of  Cuenca,  it  was 
decided  against  the  Conversos  in  a  quasi-judicial  sentence,  known 
as  the  Sentencia-Estatuto  which,  in  the  bitterness  of  its  language, 
reveals  the  extreme  tension  existing  between  the  Old  and  New 
Christians.  The  Conversos  were  stigmatized  as  more  than  sus- 
pect in  the  faith  and  as  in  reality  Jews;  they  were  declared 
incapable  of  holding  office  and  of  bearing  witness  against  Old 
Christians  and  those  who  held  positions  were  ejected.^  The  dis- 
turbances spread  to  Ciudad-Real,  where  the  principal  offices 
were  held  by  Conversos.  The  Order  of  Calatrava,  which  had  long 
endeavored  to  get  possession  of  the  city,  espoused  the  side  of  the 
Old  Christians;  there  was  considerable  fighting  in  the  streets  and 
for  five  days  the  quarter  occupied  by  the  Conversos  was  exposed 
to  pillage.^  Thus  the  hatred  which  of  old  had  been  merely  a 
matter  of  religion  had  become  a  matter  of  race.  The  one  could 
be  conjured  away  by  baptism;  the  other  was  indelible  and  the 
change  was  of  the  most  serious  import,  exercising  for  centuries  its 
sinister  influence  on  the  fate  of  the  Peninsula. 

The  Sentencia-Estatuto  threatened  to  introduce  a  new  prin- 

*  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  88-9,  116-17,  206-10,  213-15,  217-18. 
^  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  118-24. — Cronica  de  Juan  II,  ailo  xlii,  cap.  ii,  v. 
— Cronica  de  Alvaro  de  Luna,  Tit.  Ixxxiii. 

^  ]\Ierchan,  La  Juderfa  y  la  Inquisicion  de  Ciudad-Real,  I,  541-63. 


Chap.  Ill]  PERSECUTION  OF  CON  VERS  OS  127 

ciple  into  public  and  canon  law,  both  of  which  had  always  upheld 
the  brotherhood  of  Christians  and  had  encouraged  conversions  by 
prescribing  the  utmost  favor  for  converts.  Nicholas  V  was 
appealed  to  and  responded,  September  24,  1449,  with  a  bull 
declaring  that  all  the  faithful  are  one;  that  the  laws  of  Alfonso  X 
and  his  successors,  admitting  converts  to  all  the  privileges  of 
Christians,  were  to  be  enforced  and  he  commissioned  the  Arch- 
bishops of  Toledo  and  Seville,  the  Bishops  of  Palencia,  Avila  and 
Cordova,  and  the  Abbot  of  San  Fagun  to  excommunicate  all  who 
sought  to  invalidate  them/  More  than  this  seems  to  have  been 
needed  and,  in  1450,  he  formally  excommunicated  Pedro  Sar- 
miento  and  his  accomplices  as  the  authors  of  the  Sentencia- 
Estatuto  and  again,  in  1451,  he  repeated  his  bull  of  1449.  Finally, 
in  the  same  year  the  synods  of  Vitoria  and  Alcala  condemned  it 
and  Alfonso  de  Montalvo,  the  foremost  jurist  of  the  time,  pro- 
nounced it  to  be  illegal.^  It  never,  in  fact,  was  of  binding  force, 
but  the  effort  made  to  set  it  aside  shows  how  dangerous  a  menace 
it  was  and  how  it  expressed  a  widespread  pubHc  opinion.  It 
was  the  first  fitful  gust  of  the  tornado. 

Toledo  remained  the  hot-bed  of  disturbance.  In  1461  the 
martial  Archbishop,  Alonso  Carrillo  commissioned  the  learned 
Alonso  de  Oropesa,  General  of  the  Geronimites  to  investigate  the 
cause  of  dissension.  He  did  so  and  reported  that  there  were  faults 
on  both  sides  and,  at  the  request  of  the  archbishop,  he  proceeded 
to  write  his  Lumen  ad  Revelationem  Gentium  to  prove  the  unity  of 
the  faithful,  but,  while  he  was  engaged  in  this  pious  labor  the 
inextinguishable  feud  broke  out  afresh.^  Any  chance  disturbance 
might  bring  this  about  and  the  opportunity  was  furnished  in 
1467,  when  the  canons,  who  enjoyed  a  revenue  based  on  the 
bread  of  the  town  of  Maqueda,  farmed  it  out  to  a  Jew.  Alvaro 
Gomez,  an  alcalde  mayor,  was  lord  of  Maqueda;  his  alcaide  beat 
the  Jew  and  seized  the  bread  for  the  use  of  the  castle;  the  canons 
promptly  imprisoned  the  alcaide  and  summoned  Gomez  to 
answer.  When  he  came  the  quarrel  grew  bitterer;  the  Count  of 
Cifuentes,  leader  of  one  of  the  factions  of  the  city  and  protector 
of  the  Conversos,  espoused  the  cause  of  Gomez,  while  Fernando 
de  la  Torre,  a  leader  of  the  Conversos,  hoping  to  revenge  the  defeat 
of  1449,  boasted  that  he  had  at  command  four  thousand  well- 

'  Raynald.  Annal.  ann.  1449,  n.  12. 

'  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  125,  494.— Raynald.  ann.  1451,  n.  5. 

'  Nic.  Antonio,  Bibl.  vetus  Hispan.,  II,  n.  565 


128  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEESOS  [Book  I 

armed  fighting  men,  being  six  times  more  than  the  Old  Christians 
could  muster.  Matters  were  ripe  for  an  explosion  and,  on  July 
21st,  at  a  conference  held  in  the  cathedral,  the  followers  of  the 
two  parties  taunted  each  other  beyond  endurance;  swords  were 
drawn  and  blood  polluted  the  sanctuary,  though  only  one  man 
was  slain.  The  canons  proceeded  to  fortify  and  garrison  the 
cathedral,  which  was  attacked  the  next  day.  The  clergy,  galled 
by  the  fire  of  the  assailants,  to  create  a  diversion,  started  a  con- 
flagration in  the  calle  de  la  Chapineria,  which  spread  until  eight 
streets  were  destroyed — the  richest  in  Toledo,  crowded  with  shops 
full  of  costly  merchandise.  The  device  was  successful;  the  Con- 
versos  were  disheartened  and  lost  ground  till,  on  the  29th,  Cifuentes 
and  Gomez  fled,  while  Fernando  de  la  Torre  and  his  brother 
Alvaro  were  captured  and  hanged.  The  triumphant  faction 
removed  from  office  all  their  opponents  and  revived  with  addi- 
tional rigor  the  Sentencia-Estatuto.  Toledo  at  the  time  belonged 
to  the  party  of  the  pretender  Alfonso  XII  but,  when  the  citizens 
sent  to  him  to  confirm  what  they  had  done,  he  refused  and  the 
city  soon  afterwards  transferred  its  allegiance  to  Henry  IV.^  It 
is  quite  probable  that,  in  reward  for  this,  he  confirmed  the  Sen- 
tencia-Estatuto for  when,  about  the  same  time,  Ciudad-Real 
revolted  from  Alfonso  and  adhered  to  Henry,  he  granted,  July  14, 
1468,  to  that  city  that  thenceforward  no  Converse  should  hold 
municipal  office.^  In  the  all-pervading  lawlessness  such  disturb- 
ances as  those  of  Toledo  met  with  neither  repression  nor  punish- 
ment. In  1470  Valladolid  saw  a  similar  tumult,  in  which  the  Old 
Christians  and  Conversos  flew  to  arms  and  struggled  for  mastery. 
The  former  sent  for  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  who  came,  but  the 
majority  of  the  citizens  preferred  Henry  IV  and  the  royal  pair 
were  glad  to  escape.^ 

Everywhere  the  hatred  between  the  Old  Christians  and  the 
New  was  manifesting  itself  in  this  deplorable  fashion.  In  Cordova 
we  are  told  that  the  Conversos  were  very  rich  and  had  bought 
not  only  the  offices  but  the  protection  of  Alonso  de  Aguilar, 
whose  power  and  high  reputation^  commanded  universal  respect, 


^  In  this  I  have  chiefly  followed  a  MS.  account,  evidently  by  a  contemporarj', 
preserved  in  the  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  G.  109.  See  also  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III, 
145-51;  Valera,  Memorial  de  diversas  Hazanas,  cap.  xxxviii;  Castillo,  Cronica 
de  Enrique  IV,  cap.  xc,  xci. 

^  Merchan,  op.  cit.,  I,  641-3. 

*  Castillo,  op.  cit.,  cap.  cxlvi. — Mariana,  Lib.  xxiii,  cap.  xv. 


Chap.  Ill]  PERSECUTION  OF  CONVEBSOS  129 

while  the  Old  Christians  ranged  themselves  under  the  Counts  of 
Cabra  and  the  Bishop,  Pedro  de  Cordova  y  Solier.  Only  a  spark 
was  needed  to  produce  an  explosion  and  an  accident  during  a 
procession,  March  14,  1473,  furnished  the  occasion.  With  shouts 
of  viva  la  fe  de  Dios  the  mob  arose  and  pillage,  murder  and  fire 
were  let  loose  upon  the  city.  Alonso  and  his  brother  Gonsalvo 
— the  future  Great  Captain — quelled  the  riot  at  the  cost  of  no 
little  bloodshed,  but  it  burst  forth  again  a  few  days  later  and, 
after  a  combat  lasting  forty-eight  hours  the  Aguilars  were  forced 
to  take  refuge  in  the  alcazar  carrying  with  them  such  Conversos 
and  Jews  as  they  could.  Then  followed  a  general  sack  in  which 
every  kind  of  outrage  and  cruelty  was  perpetrated,  until  the 
fury  of  the  mob  was  exhausted  by  the  lack  of  victims.  Finally 
Alonso  came  to  terms  with  the  city  authorities,  who  banished 
the  Conversos  for  ever  and  such  poor  wretches  as  had  escaped 
torch  and  dagger  were  thrust  forth  to  be  robbed  and  murdered 
with  impunity  on  the  highways.^ 

Laborers  from  the  country,  who  chanced  to  be  in  Cordova, 
carried  the  welcome  news  to  neighboring  places  and  the  flame 
passed  swiftly  through  Andalusia  from  town  to  town.  Baena 
was  kept  quiet  by  the  Count  of  Cabra,  Palma  by  Luis  Porto- 
carrero,  Ecija  by  Fadrique  Manrique  and  Seville  and  Jerez  by 
Juan  de  Guzman  and  Rodrigo  Ponce  de  Leon,  but  elsewhere  the 
havoc  was  terrible.  At  Jaen,  the  Constable  of  Castile,  Miguel 
Luis  de  Iranzo,  was  treacherously  murdered  while  kneeling  before 
the  altar;  his  wife,  Teresa  de  Torres,  was  barely  able  to  escape, 
with  her  children,  to  the  alcazar,  and  the  Conversos  were  plun- 
dered and  dispatched.  Only  at  Almodbvar  del  Campo  do  we 
hear  of  any  justice  executed  on  the  assassins,  for  there  Rodrigo 
Giron,  Master  of  Calatrava,  hanged  some  of  the  most  culpable. 
The  king,  we  are  told,  when  the  news  was  brought  to  him,  grieved 
much,  but  inflicted  no  punishment.^ 

On  the  accession  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  in  1474,  a  Converso 
of  Cordova,  Anton  de  Montoro,  addressed  to  them  a  poem  in 
which  he  gives  a  terrible  picture  of  the  murders  committed  with 
impunity  on  his  brethren,  whose  purity  of  faith  he  asserts.    Fire 


^  Castillo,  op.  cit.,  cap.  clx. — Valera,  Memorial  de  diversas  Hazanas,  cap. 
clxxxiii. — Memorial  hist,  espanol,  VIII,  507. 

'  Valera,  cap.  Ixxxiii-iv. — Castillo,  cap.  clx. — Memorial  hist,  espanol,  VIII, 
508. — Ban-antes,  Ilustraciones  de  la  Casa  de  Niebla,  Lib.  viii,  cap.  vi. — Amador 
de  los  Rios,  III,  159-60. 

9 


130  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

and  sword  had  just  ravaged  the  aljama  of  Carmona  and  fresh 
disasters  were  threatening  at  Seville  and  Cordova.^  Dominicans 
and  Franciscans  were  thundering  from  the  pulpits  and  were 
calling  on  the  faithful  to  purify  the  land  from  the  pollution  of 
Judaism,  secret  and  open.  It  was  commonly  asserted  and 
believed  that  the  Christianity  of  the  Conversos  was  fictitious, 
and  fanaticism  joined  with  envy  and  greed  in  stimulating  the 
massacres  that  had  become  so  frequent.  The  means  adopted  to 
win  over  the  Jewish  converts  had  not  been  so  gentle  as  to  encour- 
age confidence  in  the  sincerity  of  their  professions  and,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  they  were  almost  universally  suspected.  The  energy 
with  which  the  new  sovereigns  enforced  respect  for  the  laws 
speedily  put  an  end  to  the  hideous  excesses  of  the  mob,  for  we 
hear  of  no  further  massacres,  but  the  abhorrence  entertained 
for  the  successful  renegades,  whose  wealth  and  power  were 
regarded  as  obtained  by  false  profession  of  belief  in  Christ,  was 
still  wide-spread,  though  its  more  violent  manifestations  were 
restrained.  Wise  forbearance,  combined  with  vigorous  mainte- 
nance of  order,  would  in  time  have  brought  about  reconciliation, 
to  the  infinite  benefit  of  Spain,  but  at  a  time  when  heresy  was 
regarded  as  the  greatest  of  crimes  and  unity  of  faith  as  the 
supreme  object  of  statesmanship,  wise  forbearance  and  toleration 
were  impossible.  After  suppressing  turbulence  the  sovereigns 
therefore  felt  that  there  was  still  a  duty  before  them  to  vindicate 
the  faith.  Thus,  after  long  hesitation,  their  policy  with  regard 
to  the  Conversos  was  embodied  in  the  Inquisition,  introduced 
towards  the  end  of  1480.  The  Jewish  question  required  different 
treatment  and  it  was  solved,  once  for  all,  in  most  decisive  fashion. 

The  Inquisition  had  no  jurisdiction  over  the  Jew,  unless  he 
rendered  himself  amenable  to  it  by  some  offence  against  the 
faith.  He  was  not  baptized;  he  was  not  a  member  of  the  Church 
and  therefore  was  incapable  of  heresy,  which  was  the  object  of 
inquisitional  functions.  He  might,  however,  render  himself 
subject  to  it  by  proselytism,  by  seducing  Christians  to  embrace 
his  errors,  and  this  was  constantly  alleged  against  Jews,  although 
their  history  shows  that,  unlike  the  other  great  religions,  Judaism 
has  ever  been  a  national  faith  with  no  desire  to  spread  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  the  race.     As  the  chosen  people,  Israel  has 


*  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  234. 


Chap.  Ill]  EXPULSION  OF  JEWS  CONSIDERED  131 

never  sought  to  share  its  God  with  the  Gentiles.  There  was 
more  foundation,  probably,  in  the  accusation  that  the  secret 
perversity  of  the  Conversos  was  encouraged  by  those  who  had 
remained  steadfast  in  the  faith,  that  circumcisions  were  secretly 
performed  and  that  contributions  to  the  synagogues  were 
welcomed. 

While  the  object  of  the  Inquisition  was  to  secure  the  unity 
of  faith,  its  founding  destroyed  the  hope  that  ultimately  the  Jews 
would  all  be  gathered  into  the  fold  of  Christ.  This  had  been  the 
justification  of  the  inhuman  laws  designed  to  render  existence 
outside  of  the  Church  so  intolerable  that  baptism  would  be  sought 
as  a  relief  from  endless  injustice,  but  the  awful  spectacle  of  the 
autos  de  fe  and  the  miseries  attendant  on  wholesale  confiscations 
led  the  Jew  to  cherish  more  resolutely  than  ever  the  ancestral 
faith  which  served  him  as  shield  from  the  terrors  of  the  Holy 
Office  and  the  dreadful  fate  ever  impending  over  the  Conversos. 
His  conversion  could  no  longer  be  hoped  for  and,  so  long  as  he 
remained  in  Spain,  the  faithful  would  be  scandalized  by  his 
presence  and  the  converts  would  be  exposed  to  the  contamination 
of  his  society.    The  only  alternative  was  his  removal. 

Isabella  tried  a  partial  experiment  of  this  kind  in  1480,  appar- 
ently to  supplement  the  Inquisition,  founded  about  the  same 
time.  Andalusia  was  the  province  where  the  Jews  were  most 
numerous  and  she  commenced  by  ordering  the  expulsion  from 
there  of  all  who  would  not  accept  Christianity  and  threatening 
with  death  any  new  settlers.^  We  have  no  details  as  to  this 
measure  and  only  know  that  it  was  several  times  postponed  and 
that  it  was  apparently  abandoned.^  A  bull  of  Sixtus  IV,  in 
1484,  shows  us  that  Jews  were  still  dwelling  there  undisturbed 
and,  when  the  final  expulsion  took  place  in  1492,  Bernaldez 
informs  us  that  from  Andalusia  eight  thousand  households 
embarked  at  Cadiz,  besides  many  at  Cartagena  and  the  ports 
of  Aragon.^ 

That  there  was  vacillation  is  highly  probable,  for  poHcy  and 
fanaticism  were  irreconcilable.  The  war  with  Granada  was 
calling  for  large  expenditures,  to  which  the  Jews  were  most 
useful  contributors  and  the  finances  were  in  the  hands  of  two 
leading  Jews,  Abraham  Senior  and  Isaac  Abravanel,  to  whose 

^  Pulgar,  Cronica  de  los  Reyes  Catolicos,  11,  Ixxvii. 

2  Padre  Fidel  Fita,  Boletin,  XV,  323-5,  327,  328,  330;  XXIII,  431. 

'  Historia  de  los  Reyes  Catolicus,  cap.  cxi. 


132  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

skilful  management  its  ultimate  success  was  largely  due.  It  may 
be  that  the  threatened  expulsion  was  rather  a  financial  than  a 
religious  measure,  adopted  with  a  view  of  selling  suspensions  and 
exemptions,  and  this  may  also  perhaps  explain  a  similar  course 
adopted  by  Ferdinand  when,  in  May,  1486,  he  ordered  the 
inquisitors  of  Aragon  to  banish  all  Jews  of  Saragossa  from  the 
archbishopric  of  Saragossa  and  the  bishopric  of  Albarracin,  in 
the  same  way  as  they  had  been  banished  from  the  sees  of  Seville, 
Cordova  and  Jaen/  The  sovereigns  knew  when  to  be  tolerant 
and  when  to  give  full  rein  to  fanaticism,  as  was  evinced  in  their 
treatment  of  renegades  and  Conversos  at  the  capture  of  Malaga 
as  contrasted  with  the  liberal  terms  offered  in  the  capitulations 
of  Almeria  and  Granada.  They  were  prepared  to  listen  to  the 
counsel  of  those  who  opposed  all  interference  with  the  Jewish 
population,  in  whose  favor  there  were  powerful  influences  at 
work.  Isabella  apparently  hesitated  long  between  statesmanship 
and  her  conceptions  of  duty,  while  Torquemada  never  ceased  to 
urge  upon  her  the  service  to  be  rendered  to  Christ  by  clearing 
her  dominions  of  the  descendants  of  his  crucifiers.^ 

There  was  no  lack  of  effort  to  inflame  public  opinion  and  to 
excite  still  further  the  hostility  so  long  and  so  carefully  cultivated. 
A  story  had  wide  circulation  that  Maestre  Ribas  Altas,  the  royal 
physician,  wore  a  golden  ball  attached  to  a  cord  around  his  neck; 


*  As  this  measure  seems  to  have  hitherto  escaped  attention,  I  give  the  text  of 
the  document — a  passage  in  a  letter  from  Ferdinand,  May  12,  1486,  to  the  inquis- 
itors of  Saragossa.  "  Devotos  padres.  Porque  por  esperiencia  parece  que  todo 
el  dano  que  en  los  cristianos  se  ha  fallado  del  delicto  de  la  heregia  ha  procedido 
de  la  conversacion  y  practica  que  con  los  judios  han  recebido  las  personas  de  su 
linage,  ningun  tan  comodo  remedio  hay  como  apartarlo  dentre  ellos  de  la  manera 
que  se  ha  fecho  en  el  arzobispo  de  Sevilla  e  obispados  de  Cordova  e  de  Jaen,  e 
pues  en  essa  ciudad  tanto  e  mas  que  en  ninguna  otra  han  danado,  es  nuestra 
voluntad  que  los  judios  dessa  ciudad  luego  sean  desterrados  dessa  dicha  ciudad 
e  de  todo  el  arzobispado  de  Qaragopa  e  obispado  de  Santa  Maria  de  Albarracin 
como  por  el  devoto  padre  Prior  de  Santa  Cruz  vos  sera  escrito  e  mandado." — 
Archivo  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Regist.  3684,  fol.  96. 

While  this  is  apparently  confined  to  the  Saragossa  Jews,  a  letter  of  Ferdinand 
to  Torquemada,  July  22,  1486,  alludes  to  the  Jews  of  Teruel  having  been  ordered 
by  the  inquisitors  to  depart  within  three  months.  He  deems  them  justified  in 
complaining  that  the  term  is  too  short,  seeing  that  they  have  to  pay  and  collect 
their  debts  and  sell  their  houses  and  lands  and  he  therefore  suggests  an  extension 
of  six  months  additional. — See  Appendix. 

^  Zurita,  Hist,  del  Key  Hernando,  Lib.  i,  ano  1492. — Mariana,  Lib.  XXIV, 
cap.  xviii. — Paramo  de  Orig.  Officii  S.  Inquisitionis,  pp.  144,  156,  163  (Madriti, 
1598). — Garibay,  Comp.  Hist.  Lib.  xix,  c.  iv 


Chap.  Ill]  STIMULATION  OF  PREJUDICE  133 

that  Prince  Juan,  only  son  of  the  sovereigns,  begged  it  of  him 
and  managed  to  open  it,  when  he  found  inside  a  parchment  on 
which  was  painted  a  crucifix  with  the  physician  in  an  indecent 
attitude;  that  he  was  so  affected  that  he  fell  sick  and,  after  much 
persuasion,  revealed  the  cause,  adding  that  he  would  not  recover 
until  the  Jew  was  burnt,  which  was  accordingly  done  and  Ferdi- 
nand consented  to  the  expulsion  of  the  accursed  sect/  Then 
we  are  told  that,  on  Good  Friday,  1488,  some  Jews,  to  avenge 
an  insult,  stoned  a  rude  cross  which  stood  on  the  hill  of  Gano 
near  Casar  de  Palomero;  they  were  observed  and  denounced, 
when  the  Duke  of  Alba  burnt  the  rabbi  and  several  of  the  culprits; 
the  cross  was  repaired  and  carried  in  solemn  procession  to  the 
parish  church,  where  it  still  remains  an  object  of  popular  vener- 
ation.^ It  is  to  this  period  also  that  we  may  presumably  refer 
the  fabrication  of  a  correspondence,  discovered  fifty  years  later 
among  the  archives  of  Toledo  by  Archbishop  Siliceo,  between 
Chamorro,  Prince  of  the  Jews  of  Spain  and  Uliff,  Prince  of  those 
of  Constantinople,  in  which  the  latter,  replying  to  a  request  for 
counsel,  tells  the  former  "as  the  king  takes  your  property,  make 
your  sons  merchants  that  they  may  take  the  property  of  the 
Christians;  as  he  takes  your  lives,  make  your  sons  physicians 
and  apothecaries,  that  they  may  take  Christian  lives;  as  he 
destroys  your  synagogues,  make  your  sons  ecclesiastics,  that 
they  may  destroy  the  churches;  as  he  vexes  you  in  other  ways, 
make  your  sons  officials,  that  they  may  reduce  the  Christians 
to  subjection  and  take  revenge."^ 

The  most  effective  device,  however,  was  a  cruel  one,  carried 
out  by  Torquemada  unshrinkingly  to  the  end.  In  June,  1490, 
a  Converso  named  Benito  Garcia,  on  his  return  from  a  pilgrimage 
to  Compostella,  was  arrested  at  Astorga  on  the  charge  of  having 
a  consecrated  wafer  in  his  knapsack.  The  episcopal  vicar.  Dr. 
Pedro  de  Villada,  tortured  him  repeatedly  till  he  obtained  a 


^  An  account  of  the  expulsion  at  the  end  of  the  Libro  Verde  de  Aragon  states 
this  to  be  the  cause  (Revista  de  Espana,  CVI,  567-8).  Ribas  Altas,  however  was 
burnt  some  years  eariier,  for  in  the  Saragossa  auto  de  fe  of  March  2,  1488,  his 
mother  Aldonpa  was  burnt  and  the  report  alludes  to  his  previous  burning  and 
relates  the  story. — Memoria  de  Diversos  Autos,  Auto  29  (see  Appendix). 

^  Barrantes,  Aparato  para  la  Historia  de  Extremadura,  I,  458. 

^  Revista  de  Espana,  CVI,  568-70.  This  correspondence  was  long  used  as  a 
weapon  against  the  New  Christians.  See  Vicente  da  Costa  Mattos,  Breve  Dis- 
corso  contra  a  heretica  Perfidia  do  Judaismo,  fol.  55-7,  166  (Lisboa,  1623). 
Rodrigo  prints  it  (Historia  verdadera  de  la  Inquisicion,  II,  47). 


134  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

confession  implicating  five  other  Conversos  and  six  Jews  in  a 
plot  to  effect  a  conjuration  with  a  human  heart  and  a  consecrated 
host,  whereby  to  cause  the  madness  and  death  of  all  Christians, 
the  destruction  of  Christianity  and  the  triumph  of  Judaism. 
Three  of  the  implicated  Jews  were  dead,  but  the  rest  of  those 
named  were  promptly  arrested  and  the  trial  was  carried  on  by  the 
Inquisition.  After  another  year  spent  in  torturing  the  accused, 
there  emerged  the  story  of  the  crucifixion  at  La  Guardia  of  a 
Christian  child,  whose  heart  was  cut  out  for  the  purpose  of  the 
conjuration.  The  whole  tissue  was  so  evidently  the  creation 
of  the  torture-chamber  that  it  was  impossible  to  reconcile  the 
discrepancies  in  the  confessions  of  the  accused,  although  the 
very  unusual  recourse  of  confronting  them  was  tried  several 
times;  no  child  had  anywhere  been  missed  and  no  remains  were 
found  on  the  spot  where  it  was  said  to  have  been  buried.  The 
inquisitors  finally  abandoned  the  attempt  to  frame  a  consistent 
narrative  and,  on  November  16,  1491,  the  accused  were  executed 
at  Avila;  the  three  deceased  Jews  were  burned  in  effigy,  the  two 
living  ones  were  torn  with  red-hot  pincers  and  the  Conversos  were 
"reconciled"  and  strangled  before  burning.  The  underlying 
purpose  was  revealed  in  the  sentence  read  at  the  auto  de  fe, 
which  was  framed  so  as  to  bring  into  especial  prominence  the 
proselyting  efforts  of  the  Jews  and  the  Judaizing  propensities  of 
the  Conversos  and  no  effort  was  spared  to  produce  the  widest 
impression  on  the  people.  We  happen  to  know  that  the  sentence 
was  sent  to  La  Guardia,  to  be  read  from  the  pulpit,  and  that  it 
was  translated  into  Catalan  and  similarly  published  in  Barcelona, 
showing  that  it  was  thus  brought  before  the  whole  population 
— a  thing  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  Inquisition.  The 
cult  of  the  Saint-Child  of  La  Guardia — El  santo  nino  de  la  Guardia 
— was  promptly  started  with  miracles  and  has  been  kept  up  to  the 
present  day,  although  the  sanctity  of  the  supposed  martyr  has 
never  been  confirmed  by  the  Holy  See.  Torquemada's  object  was 
gained  for,  though  it  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  this  alone 
won  Ferdinand's  consent  to  the  expulsion,  it  undoubtedly  con- 
tributed largely  to  that  result.  The  edict  of  expulsion,  it  is  true, 
makes  no  direct  reference  to  the  case  but,  in  its  labored  efforts 
to  magnify  the  dangers  of  Jewish  proselytism  it  reflects  distinctly 
the  admissions  extorted  from  the  accused  by  the  Inquisition.^ 

^  I  have  considered  this  notable  case   at  some  length  in  "Studies  from  the 
ReUgious  History  of  Spain,"  pp.  437-68.    It  can  be  studied  with  accuracy  in  the 


Chap.  Ill]  EXPULSION  OF  THE  JEWS  135 

With  the  surrender  of  Granada  in  January,  1492,  the  work  of 
the  Reconquest  was  accompHshed.  The  Jews  had  zealously 
contributed  to  it  and  had  done  their  work  too  well.  With  the 
accession  of  a  rich  territory  and  an  industrious  Moorish  popu- 
lation and  the  cessation  of  the  drain  of  the  war,  even  Ferdinand 
might  persuade  himself  that  the  Jews  were  no  longer  financially 
indispensable.  The  popular  fanaticism  required  constant  repres- 
sion to  keep  the  peace;  the  operations  of  the  Inquisition  de- 
stroyed the  hope  that  gradual  conversion  would  bring  about  the 
desired  unity  of  faith  and  the  only  alternative  was  the  removal 
of  those  who  could  not,  without  a  miraculous  change  of  heart, 
be  expected  to  encounter  the  terrible  risks  attendant  upon 
baptism.  It  is  easy  thus  to  understand  the  motives  leading  to 
the  measure,  without  attributing  it,  as  has  been  done,  to  greed 
for  the  victims'  wealth,  for  though,  as  we  shall  see,  there  are 
abundant  evidences  of  a  desire  to  profit  by  it,  as  a  whole  it  w^as 
palpably  undesirable  financially. 

Thus  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  from  all  the  Spanish  dominions 
came  to  be  resolved  upon.  When  this  was  bruited  about  the 
court,  Abraham  Senior  and  Abravanel  offered  a  large  sum  from 
the  al jamas  to  avert  the  blow.  Ferdinand  was  inclined  to  accept 
it,  but  Isabella  was  firm.  The  story  is  current  that,  when  the 
offer  was  under  consideration,  Torquemada  forced  his  way  into 
the  royal  presence  and  holding  aloft  a  crucifix  boldly  addressed 
the  sovereigns:  "Behold  the  crucified  whom  the  wicked  Judas 
sold  for  thirty  pieces  of  silver.  If  you  approve  that  deed,  sell 
him  for  a  greater  sum.  I  resign  my  power;  nothing  shall  be 
imputed  to  me  but  you  will  answer  to  God!"^  Whether  this  be 
true  or  not,  the  offer  was  rejected  and,  on  March  30th,  the  edict 
of  expulsion  was  signed,  though  apparently  there  was  delay  in 
its  promulgation,  for  it  was  not  published  in  Barcelona  until 


records  of  the  trial  of  one  of  the  accused,  Juce  Franco,  printed  by  Padre  Fidel 
Fita  (Boletin,  XI,  1887)  with  ample  elucidations.  The  Catalan  version  of  the 
sentence  is  in  Colecccion  de  Documentos  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  XXVIII,  68. 
For  the  legend  and  cult  of  the  Santo  Nino  see  Martinez  Moreno,  Historia  del 
Martirio  del  Santo  Nifio  de  la  Guardia,  Madrid,  1866. 

'  Pdramo  (p.  144)  seems  to  be  the  earliest  authority  for  this  story  and,  as  he 
tells  it,  it  seems  rather  applicable  to  an  attempt  of  the  Converses  to  buy  off  the 
Inquisition,  but  modern  writers  attribute  it  to  the  Jewish  expulsion.  See  Llo- 
rente,  Hist.  Crft.  cap.  viii.  Art.  1,  n.  5;  Hefele,  Der  Cardinal  Ximenes,  xviii; 
Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  272-3. 


136  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

May  1st/  It  gave  the  entire  Jewish  population  of  Spain  until 
July  31st  in  which  to  change  their  religion  or  to  leave  the  country, 
under  penalty  of  death,  which  was  likewise  threatened  for  any 
attempt  to  return.  During  the  interval  they  were  taken  under 
the  royal  protection;  they  were  permitted  to  sell  their  effects 
and  carry  the  proceeds  with  them,  except  that,  under  a  general 
law,  the  export  of  gold  and  silver  was  prohibited.^ 

A  supplementary  edict  of  May  14th  granted  permission  to  sell 
lands,  leaving  but  little  time  in  which  to  effect  such  transactions 
and  this  was  still  more  fatally  limited  in  Aragon,  where  Ferdinand 
sequestrated  all  Jewish  property  in  order  to  afford  claimants 
and  creditors  the  opportunity  to  prove  their  rights,  the  courts 
being  ordered  to  decide  all  such  cases  promptly.  Still  less 
excusable  was  his  detaining  from  all  sales  an  amount  equal  to 
all  the  charges  and  taxes  which  the  Jews  would  have  paid  him, 
thus  realizing  a  full  year's  revenue  from  the  trifling  sums  obtained 
through  forced  sales  by  the  unhappy  exiles.^  In  Castile,  the  inex- 
tricable confusion  arising  from  the  extensive  commercial  transac- 
tions of  the  Jews  led  to  the  issue.  May  30th,  of  a  decree  addressed 
to  all  the  officials  of  the  land,  ordering  all  interested  parties  to 
be  summoned  to  appear  within  twenty  days  to  prove  their 
claims,  which  the  courts  must  settle  by  the  middle  of  July.  All 
debts  falling  due  prior  to  the  date  of  departure  were  to  be  promptly 
paid;  if  due  to  Christians  by  Jews  who  had  not  personal  effects 
sufficient  to  satisfy  them,  the  creditors  were  to  take  land  at  an 
appraised  valuation  or  be  paid  out  of  other  debts  paid  by  Jews. 
For  debts  falling  due  subsequently,  if  due  by  Jews,  the  debtors 
had  to  pay  at  once  or  furnish  adequate  security ;  if  due  by  Chris- 
tians or  Moors,  the  creditors  were  either  to  leave  powers  to  collect 
at  maturity  or  to  sell  the  claims  to  such  purchasers  as  they  could 
find.*  These  regulations  afford  us  a  glimpse  into  the  complexities 
arising  from  the  convulsion  thus  suddenly  precipitated  and,  as 
the  Jews  were  almost  universally  creditors,  we  can  readily 
imagine  how  great  were  their  losses  and  how  many  Christian 
debtors  must  have  escaped  payment. 


^  Manuel  de  novells  Ardits  vulgarment  appellat  Dietari  del  Antich  Consell 
Barceloni,  III,  94  (Barcelona,  1894). 

^  Nueva  Recopilacion  Lib.  viii.  Tit.  ii,  ley  2. — Novfsima  Recop.,  Lib.  xii.  Tit.  i, 
ley  3. — Zurita,  Hist,  del  Key  Hernando,  Lib.  I,  ano  1492. — Amador  de  los 
Rios,  III,  603-9.— Boletin,  XI,  425,  512. 

'  Zurita,  loc.  cit.  *  See  Appendix. 


Chap.  Ill]  EXPULSION  OF  THE  JEWS  137 

The  sovereigns  also  shared  in  the  spoils.  When  the  exiles 
reached  the  seaports  to  embark  they  found  that  an  export  duty 
of  two  ducats  per  head  had  been  levied  upon  them,  which  they 
were  obliged  to  pay  out  of  their  impoverished  store/  Moreover, 
the  threat  of  confiscation  for  those  who  overstayed  the  time  was 
rigorously  enforced  and,  in  some  cases  at  least,  the  property 
thus  seized  was  granted  to  nobles  to  compensate  their  losses  by 
the  banishment  of  their  Jews.^  All  effects  left  behind  also  were 
seized;  in  many  cases  the  dangers  of  the  journey,  the  prohibition 
to  carry  coin  and  the  difficulty  of  procuring  bills  of  exchange,  led 
the  exiles  to  make  deposits  with  trustworthy  friends  to  be 
remitted  to  them  in  their  new  homes,  all  of  which  was  seized 
by  the  crown.  The  amount  of  this  was  sufficient  to  require  a 
regular  organization  of  officials  deputed  to  hunt  up  these  deposits 
and  other  fragments  of  property  that  could  be  escheated,  and 
we  find  correspondence  on  the  subject  as  late  as  1498.^  Efforts 
were  even  also  made  to  follow  exiles  and  secure  their  property 
on  the  plea  that  they  had  taken  with  them  prohibited  articles, 
and  Henry  VII  of  England  and  Ferdinand  of  Naples  were 
appealed  to  for  assistance  in  cases  of  this  description.* 

The  terror  and  distress  of  the  exodus,  we  are  told,  were  greatly 
increased  by  an  edict  issued  by  Torquemada,  as  inquisitor- 
general,  in  April,  forbidding  any  Christian,  after  August  9th,  from 
holding  any  communication  with  Jews,  or  giving  them  food  or 
shelter,  or  aiding  them  in  any  way.^  Such  addition  to  their  woes 
was  scarce  necessary,  for  it  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the 
misery  inflicted  on  a  population  thus  suddenly  uprooted  from 
a  land  in  which  their  race  was  older  than  that  of  their  oppressors. 
Stunned  at  first  by  the  blow,  as  soon  as  they  rallied  from  the 
shock,  they  commenced  preparations  for  departure.  An  aged 
rabbi,  Isaac  Aboab,  with  thirty  prominent  colleagues,  was  com- 
missioned to  treat  with  Joao  II  of  Portugal  for  refuge  in  his 
dominions.  He  drove  a  hard  bargain,  demanding  a  cruzado  a 
head  for  permission  to  enter  and  reside  for  six  months.®     For 

*  Pdramo,  p.  167. — Ilescas,  Historia  Pontifical,  P.  ii,  Lib.  vi,  cap.  20,  §  2. 

^  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  403. 

'  Llorente,  Hist,  crit.,  Append,  vi. — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  1; 
Lib.  3,  fol.  87.  *  Bergenroth,  Calendar  of  Spanish  State  Papers,  I,  51. 

^  Zurita,  loc.  cit. — Paramo,  p.  166. 

'  Graetz  VIII,  348. — Bemaldez,  cap.  cxii. — The  cruzado  of  Portugal  was 
worth  365  maravedfs,  the  same  as  the  dohla  de  la  banda.  The  ducat  was  worth 
374. 


138  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVERSOS  [Book  I 

those  who  were  near  the  coasts,  arrangements  were  made  for 
transhipment  by  sea,  mostly  from  Cadiz  and  Barcelona  on  the 
south  and  Laredo  on  the  north.  To  the  north-east,  Navarre 
afforded  an  asylum,  by  order  of  Jean  d'Albret  and  his  wife 
Leonora,  although  the  cities  were  somewhat  recalcitrant.^  As 
the  term  approached,  two  days'  grace  were  allowed,  bringing  it 
to  August  2d,  the  9th  of  Ab,  a  day  memorable  in  Jewish  annals 
for  its  repeated  misfortunes.^ 

The  sacrifices  entailed  on  the  exiles  were  enormous.  To  realize 
in  so  limited  a  time  on  every  species  of  property  not  portable, 
with  means  of  transportation  so  imperfect,  was  almost  impossible 
and,  in  a  forced  sale  of  such  magnitude,  the  purchasers  had  a 
vast  advantage  of  which  they  fully  availed  themselves.  An 
eye-witness  tells  us  that  the  Christians  bought  their  property 
for  a  trifle ;  they  went  around  and  found  few  buyers,  so  that  they 
were  compelled  to  give  a  house  for  an  ass  and  a  vineyard  for  a 
little  cloth  or  linen:  in  some  places  the  miserable  wretches, 
unable  to  get  any  price,  burnt  their  homes  and  the  al jamas 
bestowed  the  communal  property  on  the  cities.  Their  synagogues 
they  were  not  allowed  to  sell,  the  Christians  taking  them  and 
converting  them  into  churches,  wherein  to  worship  a  God  of 
justice  and  love.^  The  cemeteries,  for  which  they  felt  pecuHar 
solicitude,  were  in  many  places  made  over  to  the  cities,  on  con- 
dition of  preservation  from  desecration  and  use  only  for  pasturage ; 
where  this  was  not  done  they  were  confiscated  and  Torquemada 
obtained  a  fragment  of  the  spoil  by  securing,  March  23,  1494, 
from  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  the  grant  of  that  of  Avila  for  his 
convent  of  Santo  Tomas.* 

The  resolute  constancy  displayed  in  this  extremity  was 
admirable.  There  were  comparatively  few  renegades  and,  if 
Abraham  Senior  was  one  of  them,  it  is  urged  in  extenuation 
that  Isabella,  who  was  loath  to  lose  his  services,  threatened,  if 
he  persisted  in  his  faith,  to  adopt  still  sharper  measures  against 
his  people  and  he,  knowing  her  capacity  in  this  direction,  sub- 
mitted to  baptism;  he  and  his  family  had  for  god-parents  the 
sovereigns  and  Cordinal  Gonzalez  de  Mendoza;  they  assumed  the 

*  Lindo,  History  of  the  Jews,  p.  287. — Chronicle  of  Rabbi  Joseph  ben  Joshua 
ben  Meir,  I,  327. 

'  Graetz,  VIII,  349. 

'  Bernaldez,  cap.  ex. — Barrantes,  Ilustraciones  de  la  Casa  de  Niebla,  P.  ix, 
cap.  2. — Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  311. — Lindo,  p.  292 

*  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  312.— Boletin,  IX,  267,  286;  XI,  427,  586 


Chap.  Ill]  EXPULSION  OF  THE  JEWS  139 

name  of  Coronel  which  long  remained  distinguished/  The  frailes 
exerted  themselves  everywhere  in  preaching,  but  the  converts 
were  few  and  only  of  the  lowest  class ;  the  Inquisition  had  changed 
the  situation  and  San  Vicente  Ferrer  himself  would  have  found 
missionary  work  unfruitful,  for  the  dread  of  exile  was  less  than 
that  of  the  Holy  Office  and  the  quemadero. 

There  was  boundless  mutual  helpfulness;  the  rich  aided  the 
poor  and  they  made  ready  as  best  they  could  to  face  the  perils 
of  the  unknown  future.  Before  starting,  all  the  boys  and  girls 
over  twelve  were  married.  Early  in  July  the  exodus  commenced 
and  no  better  idea  of  this  pilgrimage  of  grief  can  be  conveyed 
than  by  the  simple  narrative  of  the  good  cura  of  Palacios.  Dis- 
regarding, he  says,  the  wealth  they  left  behind  and  confiding  in 
the  blind  hope  that  God  would  lead  them  to  the  promised  land, 
they  left  their  homes,  great  and  small,  old  and  young,  on  foot, 
on  horseback,  on  asses  or  other  beasts  or  in  wagons,  some  falling, 
others  rising,  some  dying,  others  being  born,  others  falUng  sick. 
There  was  no  Christian  who  did  not  pity  them;  everywhere  they 
were  invited  to  conversion  and  some  were  baptized,  but  very 
few,  for  the  rabbis  encouraged  them  and  made  the  women  and 
children  play  on  the  timbrel.  Those  who  went  to  Cadiz  hoped 
that  God  would  open  a  path  for  them  across  the  sea;  but  they 
stayed  there  many  days,  suffering  much  and  many  wished  that 
they  had  never  been  born.  From  Aragon  and  Catalonia  they 
put  to  sea  for  Italy  or  the  Moorish  lands  or  whithersoever  fortune 
might  drive  them.  Most  of  them  had  evil  fate,  robbery  and 
murder  by  sea  and  in  the  lands  of  their  refuge.  This  is  shown 
by  the  fate  of  those  who  sailed  from  CacUz.  They  had  to  embark 
in  twenty-five  ships  of  which  the  captain  was  Pero  Cabron;  they 
sailed  for  Oran  where  they  found  the  corsair  Fragoso  and  his 
fleet ;  they  promised  him  ten  thousand  ducats  not  to  molest  them, 
to  which  he  agreed,  but  night  came  on  and  they  sailed  for  Arcilla 
(a  Spanish  settlement  in  Morocco),  where  a  tempest  scattered 
them.  Sixteen  ships  put  into  Cartagena,  where  a  hundred  and 
fifty  souls  landed  and  asked  for  baptism;  then  the  fleet  went  to 
Malaga,  where  four  hundred  more  cUd  the  same.  The  rest 
reached  Arcilla  and  went  to  Fez.  Multitudes  also  sailed  from 
Gibraltar  to  Arcilla,  whence  they  set  out  for  Fez,  under  guard 
of  Moors  hired  for  the  purpose,  but  they  were  robbed  on  the 


*  Graetz,   VIII,   348. — Chronicon  de  Valladolid   (Coleccion  de  Documentos, 
XIII,   195). 


240  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

journey  and  their  wives  and  daughters  were  violated.  Many- 
returned  to  Arcilla,  where  the  new  arrivals,  on  hearing  of  this, 
remained,  forming  a  large  camp.  Then  they  divided  into  two 
parties,  one  persisting  in  going  to  Fez,  the  other  preferring 
baptism  at  Arcilla,  where  the  commandant,  the  Count  of  Boron, 
treated  them  kindly  and  the  priests  baptized  them  in  squads 
with  sprinklers.  The  count  sent  them  back  to  Spain  and,  up  to 
1496,  they  were  returning  for  baptism— in  Palacios,  Bernaldez 
baptized  as  many  as  a  hundred,  some  of  them  being  rabbis. 
Those  who  reached  Fez  were  naked  and  starving  and  lousy. 
The  king,  seeing  them  a  burden,  permitted  them  to  return  and 
they  straggled  back  to  Arcilla,  robbed  and  murdered  on  the  road, 
the  women  violated  and  the  men  often  cut  open  in  search  of  gold 
thought  to  be  concealed  in  their  stomachs.  Those  who  remained 
in  Fez  built  a  great  Jewry  for  themselves  of  houses  of  straw;  one 
night  it  took  fire,  burning  all  their  property  and  fifty  or  a  hundred 
souls— after  which  came  a  pestilence,  carrying  off  more  than 
four  thousand.  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  seeing  that  all  who 
could  get  back  returned  for  baptism,  set  guards  to  keep  them 
out  unless  they  had  money  to  support  themselves.^ 

The  whole  world  was  pitiless  to  these  wretched  outcasts, 
against  whom  every  man's  hand  was  raised.  Those  who  sought 
Portugal  utihzed  the  six  months  allotted  to  them  by  sending  a 
party  to  Fez  to  arrange  for  transit  there;  many  went  and  formed 
part  of  the  luckless  band  whose  misfortunes  we  have  seen. 
Others  remained,  the  richer  paying  the  king  a  hundred  cruzados 
per  household,  the  poorer  eight  cruzados  a  head,  while  a  thousand, 
who  could  pay  nothing,  were  enslaved.  These  King  Manoel 
emancipated,  on  his  accession  in  1495,  but  in  1497  he  enforced 
conversion  on  all.  Then  in  Lisbon,  at  Easter,  1506,  a  New 
Christian  in  a  Dominican  church,  chanced  to  express  a  doubt 
as  to  a  miraculous  crucifix,  when  he  was  dragged  out  by  the  hair 
and  slain;  the  Dominicans  harangued  the  mob,  parading  the 
streets  with  the  crucifix  and  exciting  popular  passion  till  a 
massacre  ensued  in  which  the  most  revolting  cruelties  were 
perpetrated.  It  raged  for  three  days  and  ended  only  when  no 
more  victims  could  be  found,  the  number  of  slain  being  estimated 
at  several  thousand.^  The  further  fate  of  these  refugees  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  trace  hereafter. 

1  Bemaldez,  cap.  cxii,  cxiii. 

'  Damiao  de  Goes,  Chronica  do  Rei  D.  Manoel,  P.  i,  cap.  cii,  ciii. 


Chap.  Ill]  FATE  OF  THE  EXILES  141 

In  Navarre,  whore  the  exiles  hail  been  kindly  received,  the 
era  of  toleration  was  brief.  In  1498,  an  edict,  based  on  that  of 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  gave  them  the  alternative  of  baptism 
or  expulsion  and,  at  the  same  time,  such  dillicuKies  were  thrown 
in  the  way  of  exile  that  they  mostly  submit (imI  to  ba|)tism  and 
remained  a  discreditetl  class,  subjected  to  numerous  disabilities.* 
Naples,  whither  numbers  Hocked,  afforded  an  inhospitable  ref- 
uge. In  August,  1492,  nine  caravels  arrived  there,  loaded  with 
Jews  and  infected  with  pestilence,  which  th(\v  comnumicated  to 
the  city,  whence  it  spread  through  the  kingdom  and  ragtMJ  for 
a  year,  causing  a  mortality  of  twenty  thousand.  TIumi,  in  the 
confusion  following  the  invasion  of  Charles  Mil,  in  1195,  the 
])eople  rose  against  them;  many  abandoned  their  r(>ligion  to 
esca{)e  slaughter  or  slavery;  many  were  carried  off  to  distant 
lands  and  sold  as  slaves;  this  tribulation  lastcnl  for  thr(>(^  years, 
during  which  those  who  were  steadfast  in  the  faith  were  im- 
prisoned or  burnt  or  exposed  to  the  caprices  of  the  mob.^  'i'urkey, 
on  the  whole,  prov(Ml  the  most  satisfactory  refuge,  wIumc  Hajaz(>t 
found  them  such  |)r()litable  subjects  that  he  ridiculed  the  wisdom 
popularly  ascribed  to  lhi>  S])anish  sovcM-eigns  who  could  conunit 
so  gr(>at  an  act  of  folly.  Though  exposed  to  occasional  jx'rse- 
cution,  they  continued  to  flourish;  most  of  the  existing  .lews  of 
Turkey  in  I'^urope  and  a  large  |)()rtion  of  those  of  'i'urkey  in  Asia, 
are  desccMidants  of  the  exiles;  tli(>y  absorbed  the  older  com- 
numities  and  their  language  is  still  the  Spanish  of  the  sixteenth 
century.' 

When  the  fat(^  of  th(>  e\il(>s  was,  for  th<>  most  part,  so  uncMidur- 
able,  it  was  natural  that  nuiny  should  s(>ek  to  return  to  lh(>ir 
native  land  and,  as  \\r  have  seen  from  Bcrnaldez,  large  numbers 
did  so.  At  first  this  was  tacitly  permitted,  on  condition  of 
conversion,  provided  they  brought  money  with  them,  but  the 
sovereigns  finally  gr(>w  fearful  that  I  lie  purity  of  the  faith  would 
be  impaired  and,  in  1199,  an  e\|)lanatory  eihct  was  issu(Ml, 
decreeing  death  and  confiscation  for  any  .lew  entering  Spain, 
whether   a   for(>ign(>r   or   returning  exile,   even    if   h(>   asked    for 

'  ('l\roni('lc>s  of   l{;il)l)i  .loscj)!!  Ix-ii  .losliiui  l)cn  Mcir,   1,  ;{2S.      Amador  lU-  loM 

Uios,  III,  ;w2~:{, 

'■'  Ainiulor  dc  los  Uios,   III,  .■{20.     Zurila,  lor.  cil. 

'  Archive  dc  Siniuiiiiis,  IiHiuisicion,  Libro '.)27,  lol.  12  1.  -Isidoro  Loob  (Rovuo 
d«s  f'^ludes  JuivcH,  1SS7,  p.  179).— lloHcas,  Historia  l\)iitifical,  P.  n,  Lib.  vi, 
Clip.  20,  ?  2. — KuyscrliiiK.  Hibliutcca  10s|)afiola-P<>r(,uj;uc/a-.Iiidaica,  p.  xi  (SLras- 
bourg,   1890). 


142  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

baptism,  unless  beforehand  he  sent  word  that  he  wished  to 
come  for  that  purpose,  when  he  was  to  be  baptized  at  the  port 
of  entry  and  a  notarial  act  was  to  be  taken.  That  this  savage 
edict  was  pitilessly  enforced  is  manifested  by  several  cases  in 
1500  and  1501.  Moreover,  all  masters  of  Jewish  slaves  were 
ordered  to  send  them  out  of  the  country  within  two  months, 
unless  they  would  submit  to  baptism/  Spain  was  too  holy  a 
land  to  be  polluted  with  the  presence  of  a  Jew,  even  in  captivity. 
In  the  absence  of  trustworthy  statistics,  all  estimates  of  the 
number  of  victims  must  be  more  or  less  a  matter  of  guess-work 
and  consequently  they  vary  with  the  impressions  or  imagination 
of  the  annalist.  Bernaldez  informs  us  that  Rabbi  Mair  wrote  to 
Abraham  Senior  that  the  sovereigns  had  banished  35,000  vassals, 
that  is,  35,000  Jewish  households,  and  he  adds  that,  of  the  ten 
or  twelve  rabbis  whom  he  baptized  on  their  return,  a  very 
intelligent  one,  named  Zentollo  of  Vitoria,  told  him  that  there 
were  in  Castile  more  than  30,000  married  Jews  and  6000  in  the 
kingdoms  of  Aragon,  making  160,000  souls  when  the  edict  was 
issued,  which  is  probably  as  nearly  correct  an  estimate  as  we  can 
find.^  With  time  the  figures  grew.  Albertino,  Inquisitor  of  Valen- 
cia, in  1534,  quotes  Reuchlin  as  computing  the  number  of  exiles  at 
420,000.^  The  cautious  Zurita  quotes  Bernaldez  and  adds  that 
others  put  the  total  at  400,000,  while  Mariana  tells  us  that  most 
authors  assert  the  number  of  households  to  have  been  170,000, 
and  some  put  the  total  at  800,000  souls;  Pc4ramo  quotes  the 
figures  of  124,000  households  or  over  600,000  souls."  Isidore 
Loeb,  after  an  exhaustive  review  of  all  authorities,  Jewish  and 
Christian,  reaches  the  estimate^ — 

Emigrants, 165,000 

Baptized, 50,000 

Died, 20.000 

235,000 

and  this,  in  view  of  the  diminished  number  of  Jews,  as  shown  by 
the  Repartimiento  of  1474  (p.  125)  is  probably  too  large  an 
estimate. 

1  Nueva  Recopilacion,  Lib.  viii.  Tit.  ii,  ley  3.— Novfs.  Recop.,  Lib.  xii,  Tit.  i, 
ley  4. — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  L;b.  1. 
'  Bernaldez,  cap.  cxi. 
»  Amaldin.  Albertinus  de  Hsreticis,  col.  lix  (Valentiae,  1534). 

*  Zurita,  loc.  cif.— Mariana,  Tom.  VIII,  p.  336  (Ed.  1795).— Pdramo,  p.  167. 

*  Revue  des  Etudes  Juives,  1887,  p.  182. 


Chap.  Ill]  CONTEMPORARY  OPINION  143 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  number,  the  sum  of  human 
misery  was  incomputable.  Rabbi  Joseph,  whose  father  was  one 
of  the  exiles,  eloquently  describes  the  sufferings  of  his  race: 
''For  some  of  them  the  Turks  killed  to  take  out  the  gold  which 
they  had  swallowed  to  hide  it;  some  of  them  hunger  and  the 
plague  consumed  and  some  of  them  were  cast  naked  by  the 
captains  on  the  isles  of  the  sea;  and  some  of  them  were  sold  for 
men-servants  and  maid-servants  in  Genoa  and  its  villages  and 
some  of  them  were  cast  into  the  sea.  .  .  .  For  there  were 
among  those  who  were  cast  into  the  isles  of  the  sea  upon  Provence 
a  Jew  and  his  old  father  fainting  from  hunger,  begging  bread, 
for  there  was  no  one  to  break  unto  him  in  a  strange  country. 
And  the  man  went  and  sold  his  son  for  bread  to  restore  the  soul 
of  the  old  man.  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  he  returned  to  his 
old  father,  that  he  found  him  fallen  down  dead  and  he  rent  his 
clothes.  And  he  returned  unto  the  baker  to  take  his  son  and  the 
baker  would  not  give  him  back  and  he  cried  out  with  a  loud  and 
bitter  cry  for  his  son  and  there  was  none  to  deliver."^  Penniless, 
friendless  and  despised  they  were  cast  forth  into  a  world  which 
had  been  taught  that  to  oppress  them  was  a  service  to  the 
Redeemer. 

Yet  such  were  the  convictions  of  the  period,  in  the  fifteenth 
century  after  Christ  had  died  for  man,  that  this  crime  against 
humanity  met  with  nothing  but  applause  among  contemporaries. 
Men  might  admit  that  it  was  unwise  from  the  point  of  view 
of  statesmanship  and  damaging  to  the  prosperity  of  the  land, 
but  this  only  enhanced  the  credit  due  to  the  sovereigns  whose 
piety  was  equal  to  the  sacrifice.  When,  in  1495,  Alexander  VI 
granted  to  them  the  proud  title  of  Catholic  Kings,  the  expulsion 
of  the  Jews  was  enumerated  among  the  services  to  the  faith 
entitling  them  to  this  distinction.^  Even  so  liberal  and  cultured 
a  thinker  as  Gian  Pico  della  Mirandola,  praises  them  for  it, 
while  he  admits  that  even  Christians  were  moved  to  pity  by  the 
calamities  of  the  sufferers,  nearly  all  of  whom  were  consumed 
by  shipwreck,  pestilence  and  hunger,  rendering  the  destruction 
equal  to  that  inflicted  by  Titus  and  Hadrian.^  It  is  true  that 
Machiavelli,  faithful  to  his  general  principles,  seeks  to  find  in 
Ferdinand's   participation   a   political   rather   than   a   religious 

*  Chronicles  of  Rabbi  Joseph  ben  Joshua  ben  Meir,  I,  323-4. 

*  Pet.  Martyr.  Angler.  Lib.  viii,  Epist.  157. 

*  Joan.  Pici  Mirandulse  in  Astrologiam,  Lib.  v,  cap.  xii. 


144  THE  JEWS  AND  THE  CONVEBSOS  [Book  I 

motive,  but  even  he  characterizes  the  act  as  a  pietosa  crudeltb,} 
So  far,  indeed,  was  it  from  being  a  cruelty,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
theologians  of  the  period,  that  Ferdinand  was  held  to  have 
exercised  his  power  mercifully,  for  Arnaldo  Albertino  proved  by 
the  canon  law  that  he  would  have  been  fully  justified  in  putting 
them  all  to  the  sword  and  seizing  their  property.^ 

The  Edict  of  Expulsion  proclaimed  to  the  world  the  policy 
which  in  its  continuous  development  did  so  much  for  the  abase- 
ment of  Spain.  At  the  same  time  it  closed  the  career  of  avowed 
Jews  in  the  Spanish  dominions.  Henceforth  we  shall  meet  with 
them  as  apostate  Christians,  the  occasion  and  the  victims  of  the 
Inquisition. 

1  II  Principe,  cap.  xxi.  ^  Amald.  Albertinus  de  Hsereticis,  col.  lix. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION. 

Much  as  the  Converses  had  gained,  from  a  worldly  point  of 
view,  by  their  change  of  religion,  their  position,  in  one  respect, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  seriously  deteriorated.  As  Jews  they  might 
be  despoiled  and  humiliated,  confined  in  narrow  Jewries  and 
restricted  as  to  their  careers  and  means  of  livehhood,  but  withal 
they  enjoyed  complete  freedom  of  faith,  in  which  they  were 
subjected  only  to  their  own  rabbis.  They  were  outside  of  the 
Church  and  the  Church  claimed  no  jurisdiction  over  them  in 
matters  of  religion,  so  long  as  they  did  not  openly  blaspheme 
Christianity  or  seek  to  make  proselytes.  As  soon,  however,  as 
the  convert  was  baptized  he  became  a  member  of  the  Church 
and  for  any  aberration  from  orthodoxy  he  was  amenable  to  its 
laws.  As  the  Inquisition  had  never  existed  in  Castile  and  was 
inactive  in  Aragon,  while  the  bishops,  who' held  ordinary  juris- 
diction over  heresy  and  apostasy,  were  too  turbulent  and  worldly 
to  waste  thought  on  the  exercise  of  their  authority  in  such 
matters,  the  Converses  seem  never  to  have  recognized  the 
possibility  of  being  held  to  account  for  any  secret  leaning  to  the 
faith  which  they  had  ostensibly  abandoned.  The  circumstances 
under  which  the  mass  of  conversions  was  effected — threats  of 
massacre  or  the  wearing  pressure  of  inhuman  laws — were  not 
such  as  to  justify  confidence  in  the  sincerity  of  the  neophytes, 
nor,  when  baptism  was  administered  indiscriminately  to  multi- 
tudes, was  there  a  possibility  of  detailed  instruction  in  the 
complicated  theology  of  their  new  faith.  Rabbinical  Judaism, 
moreover,  so  entwines  itself  with  every  detail  of  the  believer's 
daily  life,  and  attaches  so  much  importance  to  the  observances 
which  it  enjoins,  that  it  was  impossible  for  whole  communities 
thus  suddenly  Christianized,  to  abandon  the  rites  and  usages 
which,  through  so  many  generations,  had  become  a  part  of  exist- 
ence itself.  Earnest  converts  might  have  brought  up  their 
children  as  Christians  and  the  grandchildren  might  have  out- 
grown the  old  customs,  but  the  Converses  could  not  be  earnest 

10  ( 145  ) 


146  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

converts,  and  the  sacred  traditions,  handed  down  by  father  to 
son  from  the  days  of  the  Sanhedrin,  were  too  precious  to  be  set 
aside.  The  Anusim,  as  they  were  known  to  their  Hebrew 
brethren,  thus  were  unwilHng  Christians,  practising  what  Jewish 
rites  they  dared,  and  it  was  held  to  be  the  duty  of  all  Jews  to 
bring  them  back  to  the  true  faith/ 

As  soon,  therefore,  as  the  Church  had  gained  her  new  recruits 
she  began  to  regard  them  with  a  pardonable  degree  of  suspicion, 
although  she  seems  to  have  made  no  effort  to  instruct  them  in 
her  doctrines  after  hurriedly  baptizing  them  by  the  thousand. 
In  1429  the  council  of  Tortosa  indignantly  denounced  the 
unspeakable  cruelty  of  the  Converses  who,  with  damnable 
negligence,  permit  their  children  to  remain  in  servitude  of  the 
devil  by  omitting  to  have  them  baptized.  To  remedy  this  the 
Ordinaries  were  ordered,  by  the  free  use  of  ecclesiastical  censures, 
and  by  calling  in  if  necessary  the  secular  arm,  to  cause  all  such 
children  to  be  baptized  within  eight  days  after  birth,  and  all 
temporal  lords  were  commanded  to  lend  their  aid  in  this  pious 
work.^  The  outlook,  certainly,  was  not  promising  that  the 
coming  generation  should  be  free  from  the  inveterate  Jewish 
errors.  How  little  concealment,  indeed,  was  thought  necessary 
by  the  Converses,  so  long  as  they  exhibited  a  nominal  adherence 
to  Catholicism,  is  plainly  shown  by  the  testimony  in  the  early 
trials  before  the  Inquisition,  where  servants  and  neighbors  give 
ample  evidence  as  to  Jewish  observances  openly  followed.  Still 
more  conclusive  is  a  case  occurring,  in  1456,  in  Rosellon,  which, 
although  at  the  time  held  in  pawn  by  France,  was  subject  to 
the  Inquisition  of  Aragon.  Certain  Converses  not  only  persisted 
in  Jewish  practices,  such  as  eating  meat  in  lent,  but  forced  their 
Christian  servants  to  do  likewise,  and  when  the  inquisitor,  Fray 
Mateo  de  Rapica,  with  the  aid  of  the  Bishop  of  Elna,  sought  to 


*  Censura  et  Confutatio  Libri  Talmud  (Boletin,  XXIII,  371-4). 

The  Jews  distinguished  between  unwilling  converts,  whom  they  termed 
Anusim  and  voluntary  converts,  or  Meschudanim;  the  former  they  pitied  and 
helped,  the  latter  they  abhorred.  The  Judaizing  Christians  were  also  sometimes 
called  Alboraijcos,  from  alborak  (the  lightning),  the  marvellous  horse  brought  to 
Mahomet  by  the  angel  Gabriel,  which  was  neither  a  horse  nor  a  mule  nor  male 
nor  female  (Ibid.  p.  379).  A  still  more  abusive  popular  appellation  was  Marrano, 
which  means  both  hog  and  accursed.  For  the  controverted  derivation  of  the 
word  see  Graetz,  Geschichte  der  Juden,  VIII,  76  (Ed.  1890),  who  also  (p.  284) 
admits  the  attachment  of  many  of  the  Converses  to  the  old  religion. 

'  C.  Dertusan.  ann.  1429,  c.  ix  (Aguirre,  V,  337). 


Chap.  IV]  JUDAISM  OF  CONVEBSOS  147 

reduce  them  to  conformity,  they  defiantly  published  a  defamatory 
libel  upon  him  and,  with  the  assistance  of  certain  laymen,  afflicted 
him  with  injuries  and  expenses/  It  was  not  without  cause  that, 
v^hen  Bishop  Alfonso  de  Santa  Maria  procured  the  decree  of  1434 
from  the  council  of  Basle,  he  included  a  clause  branding  as 
heretics  all  Conversos  who  adhered  to  Jewish  superstitions, 
directing  bishops  and  inquisitors  to  enquire  strictly  after  them 
and  to  punish  them  condignly,  and  pronouncing  hable  to  the 
penalties  of  fautorship  all  who  support  them  in  those  practices.^ 
The  decree,  of  course,  proved  a  dead  letter,  but  none  the  less 
was  it  the  foreshadowing  of  the  Inquisition,  When  Nicholas  V, 
in  1449,  issued  his  bull  in  favor  of  the  Conversos,  he  followed 
the  example  of  the  council  of  Basle,  in  excepting  those  who 
secretly  continued  to  practise  Jewish  rites.  In  the  methods  com- 
monly employed  to  procure  conversions  the  result  was  inevitable 
and  incurable. 

What  rendered  this  especially  serious  was  the  success  of  the 
Conversos  in  obtaining  high  office  in  Church  and  State.  Im- 
portant sees  were  occupied  by  bishops  of  Jewish  blood;  the 
chapters,  the  monastic  orders  and  the  curacies  were  full  of  them , 
they  were  prominent  in  the  royal  council  and  everywhere  enjoyed 
positions  of  influence.  The  most  powerful  among  them — the 
Santa  Marias,  the  Davilas  and  their  following — had  turned 
against  the  royal  favorite  Alvaro  de  Luna  and,  with  the  dis- 
contented nobles,  were  plotting  his  ruin,  when  he  seems  to  have 
conceived  the  idea  that,  if  he  could  introduce  the  Inquisition 
in  Castile,  he  might  find  in  it  a  weapon  wherewith  to  subdue 
them.  At  least  this  is  the  only  explanation  of  an  application 
made  to  Nicholas  V,  in  1451,  by  Juan  II,  for  a  delegation  of 
papal  inquisitorial  power  for  the  chastisement  of  Judaizing 
Christians.  The  popes  had  too  long  vainly  desired  to  introduce 
the  Inquisition  in  Castile  for  Nicholas  to  neglect  this  opportunity. 
He  promptly  commissioned  the  Bishop  of  Osma,  his  vicar 
general,  and  the  Scholasticus  of  Salamanca  as  inquisitors,  either 
by  themselves  or  through  such  delegates  as  they  might  appoint, 
to  investigate  and  punish  without  appeal  all  such  offenders,  to 
deprive  them  of  ecclesiastical  dignities  and  benefices  and  of 
temporal  possessions,  to  pronounce  them  incapable  of  holding 
such  positions  in  future,  to  imprison  and  degrade  them,  and,  if 

1  RipoU  Bullar.  Ord.  FF.  Praedic.  Ill,  347. 

'  C.  Basiliens.  Sess.  xix,  c.  vi  (Harduin.  VIII,  1193). 


148  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

the  offence  required,  to  abandon  them  to  the  secular  arm  for 
burning.  Full  power  was  granted  to  perform  any  acts  necessary 
or  opportune  to  the  discharge  of  these  duties  and,  if  resistance 
were  offered,  to  invoke  the  aid  of  the  secular  power.  All  this 
was  within  the  regular  routine  of  the  inquisitorial  office,  but 
there  was  one  clause  which  showed  that  the  object  of  the  measure 
was  the  destruction  of  de  Luna's  enemies,  the  Converso  bishops, 
for  the  commission  empowered  the  appointees  to  proceed  even 
against  bishops — a  faculty  never  before  granted  to  inquisitors 
and  subsequently,  as  we  shall  see,  withheld  when  the  new  Inqui- 
sition was  organized.^  All  this  was  the  formal  establishment  of 
the  Inquisition  on  Castilian  soil  and,  if  circumstances  had  per- 
mitted its  development,  it  would  not  have  been  left  for  Isabella 
to  introduce  the  institution.  The  Inquisition,  however,  rested 
on  the  secular  power  for  its  efficiency.  In  Spain,  especially, 
there  was  little  respect  for  the  naked  papal  authority,  while  that 
of  Juan  II  was  too  much  enfeebled  to  enable  him  to  establish 
so  serious  an  innovation.  The  New  Christians  recognized  that 
their  safety  depended  on  de  Luna's  downfall;  the  conspiracy 
against  him  won  over  the  nerveless  Juan  II  and,  in  1453,  he  was 
hurriedly  condemned  and  executed.  Naturally  the  bull  remained 
inoperative,  and,  some  ten  years  later,  Alonso  de  Espina  feehngly 
complains  "Some  are  heretics  and  Christian  perverts,  others  are 
Jews,  others  Saracens,  others  devils.  There  is  no  one  to  invest- 
igate the  errors  of  the  heretics.  The  ravening  wolves,  0  Lord, 
have  entered  thy  flock,  for  the  shepherds  are  few;  many  are 
hirelings  and  as  hirelings  they  care  only  for  shearing  and  not 
for  feeding  thy  sheep. "^ 

To  Fray  Alonso  de  Espina  may  be  ascribed  a  large  share  in 
hastening  the  development  of  organized  persecution  in  Spain,  by 
inflaming  the  race  hatred  of  recent  origin  which  already  needed 
no  stimulation.  He  was  a  man  of  the  highest  reputation  for 
learning  and  sanctity  and  when,  early  in  his  career,  he  was 
discouraged  by  the  slender  result  of  his  preaching,  a  miracle 
revealed  to  him  the  favor  of  Heaven  and  induced  him  to  per- 


*  Raynald.  Annal.  ann.  1451,  n.  6.  • 

*  Fortalicium  Fidei,  Prolog.  (Ed.  1494,  fol.  ii*).  The  date  of  the  Fortalicium 
is  commonly  assigned  to  1459,  the  year  which  it  bears  upon  its  rubric,  but  on 
fol.  lxxviit>  the  author  speaks  of  1460  years  having  elapsed  since  the  birth  of 
Christ  and,  as  this  is  at  nearly  the  first  third  of  the  book,  it  may  not  have  been 
completed  for  a  year  or  two  later. 


Chap.  IV]  ALONSO  BE  ESPINA  I49 

severe/  In  1453  we  find  him  administering  to  Alvaro  de  Luna 
the  last  consolations  of  religion  at  his  hurried  execution,  and  he 
became  the  confessor  of  Henry  IV.^  In  1454,  when  a  child  was 
robbed  and  murdered  at  ValladoHd  and  the  body  was  scratched 
up  by  dogs,  the  Jews  were,  of  course,  suspected  and  confession 
was  obtained  by  torture.  Alonso  happened  to  be  there  and 
aroused  much  pubhc  excitement  by  his  sermons  on  the  subject, 
in  which  he  asserted  that  the  Jews  had  ripped  out  the  child's 
heart,  had  burnt  it  and,  by  mingling  the  ashes  with  wine,  had 
made  an  unholy  sacrament,  but  unfortunately,  as  he  tells  us, 
bribery  of  the  judges  and  of  King  Henry  enabled  the  offenders 
to  escape.^  The  next  year,  1455,  as  Provincial  of  the  Observantine 
Franciscans,  he  was  engaged  in  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  drive 
the  Conventuals  out  of  Segovia  or  to  obtain  a  separate  convent 
for  the  Observantines.''  Thenceforth  he  seems  to  have  concen- 
trated his  energies  on  the  endeavor  to  bring  about  the  forced 
conversion  of  the  Jews  and  to  introduce  the  Inquisition  as  a 
corrective  of  the  apostasy  of  the  Conversos.  He  is  usually  con- 
sidered to  have  himself  belonged  to  the  class  of  Conversos  who 
entertained  an  inextinguishable  hatred  for  their  former  brethren, 
but  there  is  no  evidence  of  this  and  the  probabilities  are  altogether 
against  it.^ 

His  Fortalicium  Fidei  is  a  deplorable  exhibition  of  the  fanatic 
passions  which  finally  dominated  Spain.  He  rakes  together, 
from  the  chronicles  of  all  Europe,  the  stories  of  Jews  slaying 
Christian  children  in  their  unholy  rites,  of  their  poisoning  wells 
and  fountains,  of  their  starting  conflagrations  and  of  all  the 
other  horrors  by  which  a  healthy  detestation  of  the  unfortunate 
race  was  created  and  stimulated.     The  Jewish  law,  he  tells  us^ 

*  Nicol.  Anton.  Bibl.  Vet.  Hispan.  Lib.  x,  cap.  ix. 

*  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  60,  136. — Valera,  Memoria  de  diversas  Hazanas, 
cap.  iv. 

'  Fortalicium  Fidei,  fol.  cxlvi. 

*  Colmenares,  Hist,  de  Segovia,  cap.  xxxi,  §  3. — Valera,  he.  cit. 

'  All  recent  Spanish  authorities,  I  believe,  assume  that  Fray  Alonso  was  a 
Converse,  but  the  learned  Nicolds  Antonio  {loc.  cit.)  says  nothing  about  it,  and 
Jo.  Chr.  Wolff  (Bibl.  Hebrajse  II,  1123)  points  out  that  he  nowhere  alludes  to  his 
own  experience  as  he  could  scarce  have  failed  to  do  when  accusing  the  Jews  of 
matters  which  they  denied.  He  cites  (fol.  cxHxa)  Pablo  de  Santa  Marfa,  Bishop 
of  Burgos,  for  their  prayers  against  Christians  and  another  learned  Converso  as 
to  a  secret  connected  with  the  Hebrew  letters  (fol.  xciva).  His  knowledge  con- 
cerning the  Jews  was  thus  wholly  at  second  hand  and  his  assaults  on  the  Judaiz- 
ing  of  the  Conversos  have  everj^  appearance  of  emanating  from  an  Old  Christian. 


150  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

commands  them  to  slay  Christians  and  to  despoil  them  whenever 
practicable  and  they  obey  it  with  quenchless  hatred  and  insatiable 
thirst  for  revenge.  Thrice  a  day  in  their  prayers  they  repeat 
"Let  there  be  no  hope  for  Meschudanim  (Conversos);  may  all 
heretics  and  all  who  speak  against  Israel  be  speedily  cut  off; 
may  the  kingdom  of  the  proud  be  broken  and  destroyed  and 
may  all  our  enemies  be  crushed  and  humbled  speedily  in  our 
days!"^  But  the  evil  now  wrought  by  Jews  is  trifling  to  that 
which  they  will  work  at  the  coming  of  Antichrist,  for  they  will 
be  his  supporters.  Alexander  the  Great  shut  them  up  in  the 
mountains  of  the  Caspian,  adjoining  the  realms  of  the  Great 
Khan  or  monarch  of  Cathay.  There,  between  the  castles  of  Gog 
and  Magog,  confined  by  an  enchanted  wall,  they  have  multiphed 
until  now  they  are  numerous  enough  to  fill  twenty-four  kingdoms. 
When  Antichrist  comes  they  will  break  loose  and  rally  around 
him,  as  Ukewise  will  all  the  Jews  of  the  Diaspora,  for  they  will 
regard  him  as  their  promised  Messiah  and  will  worship  him  as 
their  God,  and  with  their  united  aid  he  will  overrun  the  earth. 
With  such  eventualities  in  prospect  it  is  no  wonder  that  Fray 
Alonso  could  convince  himself,  in  opposition  to  the  canon  law, 
that  the  forced  conversion  of  the  Jews  was  lawful  and  expedient, 
as  well  as  the  baptism  of  their  cliildren  without  their  consent.^ 
When  such  was  the  temper  in  which  a  man  of  distinguished 
learning  and  intelligence  discussed  the  relations  between  Jews 
and  Christians,  we  can  imagine  the  character  of  the  sermons  in 
which,  from  numerous  pulpits,  the  passions  of  the  people  were 
inflamed  against  their  neighbors. 

If  open  Judaism  thus  was  abhorrent,  still  worse  was  the  insidious 
heresy  of  the  Conversos  who  pretended  to  be  Christians  and  who 
more  or  less  openly  continued  to  practise  Jewish  rites  and  per- 
verted the  faithful  by  their  influence  and  example.  These 
abounded  on  every  hand  and  there  was  scarce  an  effort  made  to 
repress  or  to  punish  them.  The  law,  from  the  earliest  times, 
provided  the  death  penalty  for  their  offence,  but  there  was  none 
found  to  enforce  it.^     Fray  Alonso  dolefully  asserts  that  they 


^  The  prayers  attributed  to  the  Jews  were  the  subject  of  repeated  repressive 
legislation.     See  Ordenanzas  Reales,  viii,  iii,  34. 

*  Fortalicium  Fidei,  fol.   cxlii-ix,  clxxxi-iii. 

3  Fuero  Juzgo,  xii,  iii,  27. — Fuero  Real,  iv,  i,  1. — Partidas,  vn,  xxiv,  7.  In 
fact,  these  laws  seem  to  have  been  a  dead  letter  almost  from  the  first.  I  have 
not  met  with  an  instance  of  their  enforcement. 


Chap.  IV]  JUDAISM  OF  CONVERSOS  151 

succeeded  by  their  presents  in  so  blinding  princes  and  prelates 
that  they  were  never  punished  and  that,  when  one  person  accused 
them,  three  would  come  forward  in  their  favor.  He  relates  an 
instance  of  such  an  attempt,  in  1458  at  Formesta,  where  a  barber 
named  Fernando  Sanchez  publicly  maintained  monotheism. 
Fortunately  Bishop  Pedro  of  Palencia  had  zeal  enough  to  prose- 
cute him,  when  his  offence  was  proved  and,  under  fear  of  the 
death  penalty,  he  recanted,  but  when  he  was  condemned  to 
imprisonment  for  life  so  much  sympathy  was  excited  by  the 
unaccustomed  severity  that,  in  accordance  with  numerous 
petitions,  the  sentence  was  commuted  to  ten  years'  exile.  In 
1459,  at  Segovia,  a  number  of  Converses  were  by  an  accident 
discovered  in  the  synagogue,  praying  at  the  feast  of  Tabernacles, 
but  nothing  seems  to  have  been  done  with  them.  At  Medina 
del  Campo,  in  the  same  year.  Fray  Alonso  was  informed  that 
there  were  more  than  a  hundred  who  denied  the  truth  of  the 
New  Testament,  but  he  could  do  nothing  save  preach  against 
them,  and  subsequently  he  learned  that  in  one  house  there  were 
more  than  thirty  men,  at  that  very  time,  laid  up  in  consequence 
of  undergoing  circumcision.  It  is  no  wonder  that  he  earnestly 
advocated  the  introduction  of  the  Inquisition  as  the  only  cure 
for  this  scandalous  condition  of  affairs,  that  he  argued  in  its 
favor  with  the  warmest  zeal  and  answered  all  objections  in  a 
manner  which  showed  that  he  was  familiar  with  its  workings 
from  a  careful  study  of  the  Clementines  and  of  Eymeric's  Direc- 
torium.^ 

.  The  good  Cura  de  los  Palacios  is  equally  emphatic  in  his 
testimony  as  to  the  prevalence  of  Judaism  among  the  Converses. 
For  the  most  part,  he  says,  they  continued  to  be  Jews,  or  rather 
they  were  neither  Christians  nor  Jews  but  heretics,  and  this 
heresy  increased  and  flourished  through  the  riches  and  pride  of 
many  wise  and  learned  men,  bishops  and  canons  and  friars  and 
abbots  and  financial  agents  and  secretaries  of  the  king  and  of 
the  magnates.  At  the  commencement  of  the  reign  of  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella  this  heresy  grew  so  powerful  that  the  clerks  were 
on  the  point  of  preaching  the  law  of  Moses.  These  heretics 
avoided  baptizing  their  children  and,  when  they  could  not 
prevent  it,  they  washed  off  the  baptism  on  returning  from  the 
church;  they  ate  meat  on  fast  days  and  unleavened  bread  at 


*  Fortalicium  Fidei,  fol.  liii-liv,  Ixxv-vi,  clxxviii-ix. 


152  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

Passover,  which  they  observed  as  well  as  the  Sabbaths;  they 
had  Jews  who  secretly  preached  in  their  houses  and  rablns  who 
slaughtered  meat  and  birds  for  them;  they  performed  all  the 
Jewish  ceremonies  in  secret  as  well  as  they  could  and  avoided, 
as  far  as  possible,  receiving  the  sacrament;  they  never  confessed 
truly — a  confessor,  after  hearing  one  of  them,  cut  off  a  corner  of 
his  garment  saying  ''Since  you  have  never  sinned  I  want  a  piece 
of  your  clothes  as  a  relic  to  cure  the  sick."  Many  of  them  attained 
to  great  wealth,  for  they  had  no  conscience  in  usury,  saying  that 
they  were  spoiling  the  Egyptians.  They  assumed  airs  of  superi- 
ority, asserting  that  there  was  no  better  race  on  earth,  nor  wiser, 
nor  shrewder,  nor  more  honorable  through  their  descent  from 
the  tribes  of  Israel.^ 

In  fact,  when  we  consider  the  popular  detestation  of  the 
Conversos  and  the  invitation  to  attack  afforded  by  their  Judaizing 
tendencies,  the  postponement  in  establishing  the  Inquisition  is 
attributable  to  the  all-pervading  lawlessness  of  the  period  and 
the  absence  of  a  strong  central  power.  The  people  gratified  their 
hatred  by  an  occasional  massacre,  with  its  accompanying  pillage, 
but  among  the  various  factions  of  the  distracted  state  no  one  was 
strong  enough  to  attempt  a  systematic  movement  provoking  the 
bitterest  opposition  of  a  powerful  class  whose  members  occupied 
confidential  positions  in  the  court  not  alone  of  the  king  but  of 
every  noble  and  prelate.  Earnest  and  untiring  as  was  Fray 
Alonso's  zeal  it  therefore  was  fruitless.  In  August,  1461,  he 
induced  the  heads  of  the  Observantine  Franciscans  to  address 
the  chapter  of  the  Geronimites  urging  a  union  of  both  bodies  in 
the  effort  to  obtain  the  introduction  of  the  Inquisition.  The 
suggestion  was  favorably  received  but  the  answer  was  delayed, 
and  the  impatient  Fray  Alonso,  with  Fray  Fernando  de  la  Plaza 
and  other  Observantines,  appealed  directly  to  King  Henry, 
representing  the  prevalence  of  the  Judaizing  heresy  throughout 
the  land  and  the  habitual  circumcision  of  the  children  of  Con- 
versos.^ The  zeal  of  Fray  Fernando  outran  his  discretion  and 
in  his  sermons  he  declared  that  he  possessed  the  foreskins  of 


*  Bemaldez,  Historia  de  los  Reyes  Catolicos,  cap.  xliii.  See  also  Pdramo  de 
Orig.  Officii  S.  Inquisit.,  p.  134. 

Bemaldez  evidently  derives  his  details  from  the  inquisitorial  sentences  read  at 
the  autos  de  fe,  in  which  these  evidences  of  Judaism  are  recited  in  endless  repeti- 
tion. 

'  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  142. 


Chap.  IV]  COMMENCEMENT  OF  PERSECUTION  153 

children  thus  treated.  King  Henry  sent  for  him  and  said  that 
this  practice  was  a  gross  insult  to  the  Church,  which  it  was  his 
duty  to  punish,  ordering  him  to  produce  the  objects  and  reveal 
the  names  of  the  culprits.  The  fraile  could  only  reply  that  he 
had  heard  it  from  persons  of  repute  and  authority,  but,  on  being 
commanded  to  state  their  names,  refused  to  do  so,  thus  tacitly 
acknowledging  that  he  had  no  proof.  The  Conversos  were 
not  slow  in  taking  advantage  of  his  blunder  and,  to  crown  the 
defeat  of  the  Observantines,  the  Geronimites  changed  their  views. 
Their  general,  Fray  Alonso  de  Oropesa,  who  himself  had  Jewish 
blood  in  his  veins,  was  a  man  deservedly  esteemed;  under  his 
impulsion  they  mounted  the  pulpit  in  defence  of  the  Conversos 
and  the  Observantines  for  the  time  were  silenced.^  While  the 
labors  of  the  fiery  Fray  Alonso  were  unquestionably  successful 
in  intensifying  the  bitterness  of  race  hatred,  their  only  direct 
result  was  seen  in  the  Concordia  of  Medina  del  Campo  between 
Henry  IV  and  his  revolted  nobles  in  1464-5.  In  this  an  elaborate 
clause  deplored  the  spread  of  the  Judaizing  heresy;  it  ordered  the 
bishops  to  establish  a  searching  inquisition  throughout  all  lands 
and  lordships,  regardless  of  franchises  and  privileges,  for  the 
detection  and  punishment  of  the  heretics;  it  pledged  the  king 
to  support  the  measure  in  every  way  and  to  employ  the  confis- 
cations in  the  war  with  the  Moors  and  it  pointed  out  that  the 
enforcement  of  this  plan  would  put  an  end  to  the  tumults  and 
massacres  directed  against  the  suspects.^  Under  this  impulsion 
some  desultory  persecution  occurred.  In  the  trial  of  Beatriz 
Nunez,  by  the  Inquisition  of  Toledo  in  1485,  witnesses  allude  to 
her  husband,  Fernando  Gonzalez  who,  some  twenty  years  before, 
had  been  convicted  and  reconciled.'  More  detailed  is  a  case 
occurring  at  Llerena  in  1467,  where,  on  September  17th,  two  Con- 
versos, Garci  Fernandez  Valency  and  Pedro  Franco  de  Villareal, 
were  discovered  in  the  act  of  performing  Jewish  ceremonies. 
The  alcalde  mayor,  Alvaro  de  Cespedes,  at  once  seized  them  and 
carried  them  before  the  -episcopal  vicar,  Joan  Millan.  They 
confessed  their  Judaism  and  the  vicar  at  once  sentenced  them  to 
be  burnt  alive,  which  was  executed  the  same  day;  two  women 
compromised  in  the  matter  were  condemned  to  other  penalties 

^  Castillo,  Cronica  de  Enrique  IV,  cap.  liii. — Mariana  Historia  de  Espafia,  Lib. 
XXIII,  cap.  vi. 

*  Modesto  Lafuente,  Hist.  Gen.  de  Espana,  IX,  227. 
3  Boletin,  XXIII,  300-1. 


154  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

and  the  house  in  which  the  heresy  had  been  perpetrated  was  torn 
down/  In  such  cases  the  bishops  were  merely  exercising  their 
imprescriptible  jurisdiction  over  heresy,  but  the  prelacy  of  Castile 
was  too  much  occupied  with  worldly  affairs  to  devote  any  gen- 
eral or  sustained  energy  to  the  suppression  of  Judaizers,  and 
the  land  was  too  anarchical  for  the  royal  power  to  exert  any 
influence  in  carrying  the  Concordia  into  effect;  the  Deposition  of 
Avila,  which  followed  in  the  next  year,  plunged  everything  again 
into  confusion  and  the  only  real  importance  of  the  attempt  lies 
in  its  significance  of  what  was  impending  when  peace  and  a  strong 
government  should  render  such  a  measure  feasible.  Yet  it  is  a 
noteworthy  fact  that,  in  all  the  long  series  of  the  Cortes  of  Cas- 
tile, from  the  earliest  times,  the  proceedings  of  which  have  been 
published  in  full,  there  was  no  petition  for  anything  approach- 
ing an  Inquisition.  In  the  fourteenth  century  there  were  many 
complaints  about  the  Jews  and  petitions  for  restrictive  laws,  but 
these  diminish  in  the  fifteenth  century  and  the  later  Cortes,  from 
1450  on,  are  almost  free  from  them.  The  fearful  disorders  of  the 
land  gave  the  procurators  or  deputies  enough  to  complain  about 
and  they  seem  to  have  had  no  time  to  waste  on  problematical 
dangers  to  religion.^ 

This  was  the  situation  at  the  accession  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  in  1474.  Some  years  were  necessary  to  settle  the  ques- 
tion of  the  succession,  disputed  by  the  unfortunate  Beltraneja, 
and  to  quell  the  unruly  nobles.  During  this  period  Sixtus  IV 
renewed  the  attempt  to  introduce  the  papal  Inquisition,  for,  in 
sending  Nicolo  Franco  to  Castile  as  legate,  he  commissioned  him 
with  full  inquisitorial  faculties  to  prosecute  and  punish  the  false 
Christians  who  after  baptism  persisted  in  the  observance  of  Jew- 
ish rites.^  The  effort,  however,  was  fruitless  and  is  interesting 
chiefly  from  the  evidence  which  it  gives  of  the  desire  of  Sixtus 
to  give  to  Castile  the  blessing  of  the  Inquisition.  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  as  we  have  seen,  were  habitually  jealous  of  papal 
encroachments  and  were  anxious  to  limit  rather  than  to  extend 
the  legatine  functions;  they  did  not  respond  to  the  papal  zeal 
for  the  purity  of  the  faith  and  even  when  quiet  was  to  a  great 


'  Vicente  Barrantes,  Aparato  para  la  Historia  de  Extremadura,  II,  362. 
'  Cortes  de  los  Antiguos  Reinos  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  Madrid,  1861  sqq. 
'  Archivio  Vaticano.  Sisto  IV,  Registro  679,  Tom.  I,  fol.  52.    I  have  printed 
this  bull  in  the  American  Historical  Review,  I,  46. 


Chap.  IV  PRELIMINARY  M0VE3IENTS  I55 

extent  restored  they  took  no  initiative  with  regard  to  a  matter 
which  had  seemed  to  Fray  Alonso  de  Espina  so  immeasurably 
important.  In  his  capacity  of  agitator  he  had  been  succeeded 
by  Fray  Alonso  de  Hojeda,  prior  of  the  Dominican  house  of  San 
Pablo  of  Seville,  who  devoted  himself  to  the  destruction  of 
Judaism,  both  open  as  professed  by  the  Jews  and  concealed 
as  attributed  to  the  Conversos.  The  battle  of  Toro,  March  1, 
1476,  virtually  broke  up  the  party  of  the  Beltraneja,  of  which 
the  leaders  made  their  peace  as  best  they  could,  and  the  sover- 
eigns could  at  last  undertake  the  task  of  pacifying  the  land.  At 
the  end  of  July,  1477,  Isabella,  after  capturing  the  castle  of  Tru- 
gillo,  came,  as  we  have  seen,  to  Seville  where  she  remained  until 
October,  1478.^  The  presence  of  the  court,  with  Conversos  filling 
many  of  its  most  important  posts,  excited  Fray  Alonso  to  greater 
ardor  than  ever.  It  was  in  vain,  however,  that  he  called  the 
queen's  attention  to  the  danger  threatening  the  faith  and  the  State 
from  the  multitude  of  pretended  Christians  in  high  places.  She 
was  receiving  faithful  service  from  members  of  the  class  accused 
and  she  probably  was  too  much  occupied  with  the  business  in 
hand  to  undertake  a  task  that  could  be  postponed.  It  is  said 
that  her  confessor,  Torquemada,  at  an  earlier  period,  had  induced 
her  to  take  a  vow  that,  when  she  should  reach  the  throne,  she 
would  devote  her  life  to  the  extirpation  of  heresy  and  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  Catholic  faith,  but  this  may  safely  be  dismissed  as  a 
legend  of  later  date.^  Be  this  as  it  may,  all  that  was  done  at  the 
moment  was  that  Pero  Gonzalez  de  Mendoza,  then  Archbishop 
of  Seville,  held  a  synod  in  which  was  promulgated  a  catechism 
setting  forth  the  belief  and  duties  of  the  Christian,  which  was 
published  in  the  churches  and  hung  up  for  public  information  in 
every  parish,  while  the  priests  were  exhorted  to  increased  vigi- 
lance and  the  frailes  to  fresh  zeal  in  making  converts.^     The 

^  It  was  during  Isabella's  stay  in  Seville  that,  on  September  2d,  she  confirmed, 
followed  by  Ferdinand  at  Xeres,  October  18,  1477,  a  forged  decree,  ascribed  to 
Frederic  II,  granting  certain  privileges  to  the  Inquisition  of  Sicily.  This  was 
done  at  the  request  of  Filippo  de'Barbarj,  subsequently  Inquisitor  of  Sicily,  then 
at  the  court,  whom  both  monarchs  qualify  as  their  confessor.  He  is  said  to  have 
exercised  considerable  influence  with  them  in  overcoming  the  opposition  to  the 
establishment  of  the  Inquisition  in  Castile.  With  regard  to  the  forged  decree  of 
Frederic  II,  see  the  author's  "  History  of  the  Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages," 
Vol.  II,  p.  288. 

^  Zurita,  Anales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  xx,  cap.  xlix. 

^  Pulgar,  Chronica,  P.  11,  cap.  Ixxvii. — Bernaldez,  cap.  xliii. — Medina,  Vida 
del  Cardenal  Mendoza  (Memorial  hist,  espaiiol,  VI,  235), 


156  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

adoption  of  such  a  device  betrays  the  previous  neglect  of  all 
instruction  of  the  Marranos  in  the  new  religion  imposed  on  them. 

The  court  left  Seville  and  Hojeda's  opportunity  seemed  to 
have  passed  away.  Whatever  alacrity  the  priests  may  have 
shown  in  obeying  their  archbishop,  nothing  was  accomplished 
nor  was  the  increased  zeal  of  the  frailes  rewarded  with  success. 
There  is  a  story  accredited  by  all  historians  of  the  Inquisition 
that  Hojeda  chanced  to  hear  of  a  meeting  of  Jews  and  Converses 
on  the  night  of  Good  Frida}',  March  28,  1478,  to  celebrate  their 
impious  rites  and  that  he  hastened  with  the  evidence  to  Cordova 
and  laid  it  before  the  sovereigns,  resulting  in  the  punishment 
of  the  culprits  and  turning  the  scale  in  favor  of  introducing  the 
Inquisition,  but  there  is  no  contemporary  evidence  of  its  truth 
and  the  dates  are  irreconcilable,  nor  was  such  an  incentive 
necessary.^  The  insincerity  of  the  conversion  of  a  large  portion 
of  the  Marranos  was  incontestable;  according  to  the  principles 
universally  accepted  at  the  period  it  was  the  duty  of  the  sov- 
ereigns to  reduce  them  to  conformity;  with  the  pacification  of 
the  land  the  time  had  come  to  attempt  this  resolutely  and  com- 
prehensively and  the  only  question  was  as  to  the  method. 

It  was  inevitable  that  there  should  have  been  a  prolonged  strug- 
gle in  the  court  before  the  drastic  remedy  of  the  Inquisition  was 
adopted.  The  efforts  of  its  advocates  were  directed,  not  against 
the  despised  and  friendless  Jews,  but  against  the  powerful  Con- 
versos,  embracing  many  of  the  most  trusted  counsellors  of  the 
sovereigns  and  men  high  in  station  in  the  Church,  who  could 
not  but  recognize  the  danger  impending  on  all  who  traced  their 
descent  from  Israel.  There  seems  at  first  to  have  been  a  kind 
of  compromise  adopted,  under  which  Pedro  Fernandez  de  Solis, 
Bishop  of  Cadiz,  who  was  Provisor  of  Seville,  with  the  Assistente 
Diego  de  Merlo,  Fray  Alfonso  de  Hojeda  and  some  other  frailes 
were  commissioned  to  take  charge  of  the  matter,  with  power  to 
inflict  punishment.  This  resultlct^  in  a  report  by  the  commis- 
sioners to  the  sovereigns  that  a  great  portion  of  the  citizens  of 
Seville  were  infected  with  heresy,  that  it  involved  men  high  in 
station  and  power,  and  that  it  spread  throughout  not  only  Anda- 
lusia but  Castile,  so  that  it  was  incurable  save  by  the  organiza- 


*  Paramo  de  Orig.  Offic.  S.  Inquis.  p.  134. 

Padre  Fidel  Fita  has  pointed  out  the  discrepancy  in  the  dates. — Boletin,  XVI, 
659. 


Chap.  IV]  THE  INQUISITION  APPLIED  FOB  157 

tion  of  the  Inquisition.^  The  Archbishop  Mencloza,  doubtless 
disgusted  with  the  failure  of  his  methods  of  instruction,  joined 
in  these  representations  and  they  had  a  powerful  supporter  in 
Fray  Thomas  de  Torquemada,  prior  of  the  Dominican  convent 
of  Santa  Cruz  in  Segovia,  who,  as  confessor  of  the  sovereigns, 
had  much  influence  over  them  and  who  had  long  been  urging 
the -.yigorous  chastisement  of  heresy.^  At  last  the  victory  was 
wonV,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  resolved  to  introduce  the  Inqui- 
sition in  the  Castilian  kingdoms  and  their  ambassadors  to  the 
Holy  See,  the  Bishop  of  Osma  and  his  brother  Diego  de  Santillan, 
were  ordered  to  procure  the  necessary  bull  from  Sixtus  IV.^ 
This  must  have  been  shrouded  in  profound  secrecy,  for,  in  July, 
1478,  while  negotiations  must  have  been  on  foot  in  Rome,  Fer- 
dinand and  Isabella  convoked  a  national  synod  at  Seville  which 
sat  until  August  1st.  In  the  propositions  laid  by  the  sovereigns 
before  this  body  there  is  no  hint  that  such  a  measure  was  desired 
or  proposed  and,  in  the  deliberations  of  the  assembled  prelates, 
there  is  no  indication  that  the  Church  thought  any  action  against 
the  Converses  necessary.^  Even  as  late  as  1480,  after  the  pro- 
curement of  the  bull  and  before  its  enforcement,  the  Cortes  of 
Toledo  presented  to  the  sovereigns  a  detailed  memorial  embody- 
ing all  the  measures  of  reform  desired  by  the  people.  In  this 
the  separation  of  Christians  from  Jews  and  Moors  is  asked  for, 
but  there  is  no  request  for  the  prosecution  of  apostate  Converses.^ 
Evidently  there  was  no  knowledge  of  and  no  popular  demand 
for  the  impending  Inquisition. 

Sixtus  can  have  been  nothing  loath  to  accomplish  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Inquisition  in  Castile,  which  his  predecessors  had 
so  frequently  and  so  vainly  attempted  and  which  he  had  essayed 
to  do  a  few  years  previous  by  granting  the  necessary  faculties 
to  his  legate.  If  the  request  of  the  Castilian  sovereigns,  there- 
fore, was  not  immediately  granted  it  cannot  have  been  from 
humanitarian  motives  as  alleged  by  some  modern  apologists, 


^  Bemaldez,  Historia  de  los  Reyes  Catolicos,  cap.  xliii. 

'  Pdramo,  p.  135. — Medina,  Vida  del  Cardenal  Mendoza  (Memorial  historico 
espaiiol,  VI,  235). 

^  Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  11,  cap.  clxxvii. — Pulgar  (cap.  iv)  gives  sole  credit  to 
Isabella  for  the  extirpation  of  heresy. 

*  The  proceedings  of  this  important  assembly  have  been  printed  by  Padre 
Fidel  Fita  (Boletin,  XXII,  212-250). 

'  Printed  by  Dom  Clemencin,  Elogio  de  Dona  Isabel,  pp.  595-7. 


158  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

but  because  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  desired,  not  the  ordinary 
papal  Inquisition,  but  one  which  should  be  under  the  royal  con- 
trol and  should  pour  into  the  royal  treasury  the  resultant  con- 
fiscations. Hitherto  the  appointment  of  inquisitors  had  always 
been  made  by  the  Provincials  of  the  Dominican  or  Franciscan 
Orders  according  as  the  territory  belonged  to  one  or  to  the  other, 
with  occasional  interference  on  the  part  of  the  Holy  See,  from 
wMch  the  commissions  emanated.  It  was  a  delegation  of  the 
supreme  papal  authority  and  had  always  been  held  completely 
independent  of  the  secular  power,  but  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
were  too  jealous  of  papal  interference  in  the  internal  affairs  of 
their  kingdoms  to  permit  this,  and  it  is  an  evidence  of  the 
extreme  desire  of  Sixtus  to  extend  the  Inqiusition  over  Castile, 
that  he  consented  to  make  so  important  a  concession.  There 
also  was  doubtless  discussion  over  the  confiscations  which  the 
wealth  of  the  Conversos  promised  to  render  large.  This  was 
a  matter  in  which  there  was  no  universally  recognized  prac- 
tice. In  France  they  enured  to  the  temporal  seigneur.  In  Italy 
the  custom  varied  at  different  times  and  in  the  various  states, 
but  the  papacy  assumed  to  control  it  and,  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, it  claimed  the  whole,  to  be  divided  equally  between  the 
Inquisition  and  the  papal  camera.^  The  matter  was  evidently 
one  to  be  determined  by  negotiation,  and  in  this  too  the  sov- 
ereigns had  their  way,  for  the  confiscations  were  tacitly  aban- 
doned to  them.  Nothing  was  said  as  to  defraying  the  expenses 
of  the  institution,  but  this  was  inferred  by  the  absorption  of 
the  confiscations.  If  it  was  to  be  dependent  on  the  crown  the 
crown  must  provide  for  it,  and  we  shall  see  hereafter  the  various 
devices  by  which  a  portion  of  the  burden  was  subsequently 
thrown  upon  the  Church. 

The  bull  as  finally  issued  bears  date  November  lj„1.478j_and 
is  a  very  simple  affair  which,  on  its  face,  bears  no  signs  of  its 
momentous  influence  in  moulding  the  destinies  of  the  Spanish 
Peninsula.  After  reciting  the  existence  in  Spain  of  false  Chris- 
tians and  the  request  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  that  the  pope 
should  provide  a  remedy,  it  authorizes  them  Jo  appoint  three 
bishops  or  other  suitable  men,  priests  either  regular  or  secular, 
over  forty  years  of  age,  masters  or  bachelors  in  theology  or 
doctors  or  licentiates  of  canon  law,  and  to  remove  and  replace 

1  Fortalicium  Fidei,  Lib.  ii,  consid.  xi.— History  of  the  Inquisition  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  I,  512-13. 


Chap.  IV]  NATURE  OF  THE  PAPAL  BULL  159 

them  at  pleasure.  These  are  to  have  the  jurisdiction  and  facul- 
ties of  bishops  and  inquisitors  over  heretics,  their  fautors  and 
receivers/  Subsequently  Sixtus  pronounced  the  bull  to  have 
been  drawn  inconsiderately  and  not  in  accordance  with  received 
practice  and  the  decrees  of  his  predecessors,  which  doubtless 
referred  to  the  power  of  appointment  and  removal  lodged  in 
the  crown  and  also  to  the  omission  of  the  requirement  of  epis- 
copal concurrence  in  rendering  judgment.^  The  creation  of 
inquisitors  was  in  itself  an  invasion  of  episcopal  jurisdiction, 
which,  from  the  earhest  history  of  the  institution,  had  been  the 
source  of  frequent  trouble,  and  where,  as  in  Spain,  many  bishops 
were  of  Jewish  blood  and  therefore  under  suspicion,  the  question 
was  more  intricate  than  elsewhere.  With  respect  to  this,  more- 
over, it  is  observable  that  the  bull  did  not  confer,  like  that  of 
Nicholas  V,  in  1451,  jurisdiction  over  bishops  in  any  special 
derogation  of  the  decree  of  Boniface  VIII  requiring  them,  when 
suspected  of  heresy,  to  be  tried  by  the  pope.^     Both  of  these 

'  This  bull  is  embodied  in  the  first  proclamation  of  the  inquisitors,  Seville, 
Januarj'  2,  1481,  printed  by  Padre  Fita  (Boletin,  XV,  449-52).  It  had  previously 
been  looked  upon  as  lost.  Its  main  provisions,  however,  are  embodied  in  the 
c^dula  of  Dec.  27,  1480,  printed  in  the  notes  to  the  Novlsima  Recopilacion,  Ed. 
1805,  Tom.  I,  p.  260. 

It  is  a  little  singular  that  the  Inquisition  possessed  very  few  documents  relating 
to  its  early  history.  In  an  elaborate  consulta  of  July  18,  1703,  presented  to 
Philip  V  on  the  affair  of  Fray  Froilan  Diaz,  the  Suprema  states  that  it  had  had 
all  the  records  searched  with  little  result;  many  important  papers  had  been  sent 
to  Aragon  and  Catalonia  and  had  never  been  returned ;  the  rest  were  in  a  chest 
dehvered  to  the  Count  of  Villalonga,  secretary  of  Philip  III,  to  arrange  and 
classify  and  on  his  arrest  and  the  sequestration  of  his  effects  they  disappeared. 
— Biblioteca  Nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  G,  61,  fol.  198. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  the  contents  of  the  chest  form  the  "  Bulario  de  la 
Inquisicion  perteneciente  d  la  Orden  de  Santiago,"  consisting  of  eight  Libros,  or 
folio  volumes  (five  of  originals  and  three  of  copies)  now  in  the  Archive  Historico 
Nacional.  It  is  from  this  collection  that  Padre  Fita  has  printed  the  proclamation 
above  alluded  to  and  many  other  important  documents,  and  it  will  be  seen  that 
I  have  made  large  use  of  it  under  the  name  of  "  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago." 
There  are  also  vast  stores  of  records  in  the  Archivo  Historico  Nacional  of  Madrid, 
in  the  archives  of  Simancas  and  Barcelona,  and  some  in  the  Vatican  Library. 
Llorente  burnt  many  papers  before  leaving  Madrid  and  carried  others  to  Paris, 
some  of  which  are  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  fonds  espagnol.  The  Biblioteca 
Nacional  of  Madrid  also  has  a  large  number  and  others  are  dispersed  through 
the  various  libraries  of  Europe  or  are  in  private  hands. 

2  See  his  brief  of  January  29,  1482,  printed  by  Llorente,  Historia  Crltica, 
Append,  n.  1. 

'  History  of  the  Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages,  I,  331. 


4 


160  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

questions,  as  we  shall  see,  subsequently  gave  rise  to  considerable 
discussion. 

So  far  the  anti-Semitic  party  had  triumphed,  but  Isabella's 
hesitation  to  exercise  the  powers  thus  obtained  shows  that  the 
Conversos  in  her  court  did  not  abandon  the  struggle  and  that 
for  nearly  two  years  they  succeeded  in  keeping  the  balance  even. 
It  is  possible  also  that  Ferdinand  was  not  inclined  to  a  severity 
of  which  he  could  forecast  the  economical  disadvantages,  for 
as  late  as  January,  1482,  a  letter  from  him  to  the  inquisitors  of 
his  kingdom  of  Valencia  manifests  a  marked  preference  for  the 
use  of  mild  and  merciful  methods.^  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  influences  at  work,  it  was  not  until  September  17,  1480, 
that  the  momentous  step  was  taken  which  was  to  exercise  so 
sinister  an  influence  on  the  destinies  of  Spain.  On  that  day 
commissions  were  issued  to  two  Dominicans,  Miguel  de  Morillo, 
master  of  theology,  and  Juan  de  San  Martin,  bachelor  of  theology 
and  friar  of  San  Pablo  in  Seville,  who  were  emphatically  told 
that  any  dereliction  of  duty  would  entail  their  removal,  with 
forfeiture  of  all  their  temporalities  and  denationalization  in  the 
kingdom,  thus  impressing  upon  them  their  subordination  to 
the  crown.  Still  there  were  delays.  October  9th  a  royal  order 
commanded  all  officials  to  give  them  free  transportation  and 
provisions  on  their  way  to  Seville,  where,  as  in  the  most  infected 
spot,  operations  were  to  commence.  AVhen  they  reached  the 
city  they  waited  on  the  chapter  and  presented  their  creden- 
tials; the  municipal  council  met  them  at  the  chapter-house 
door  and  escorted  them  to  the  city  hall,  where  a  formal  re- 
ception took  place  and  a  solemn  procession  was  organized  for 
the  following  Sunday.  They  were  thus  fairly  installed  but 
apparently  they  still  found  difficulties  thrown  in  their  way  for, 
on  December  27,  it  was  deemed  necessary  to  issue  a  royal 
cedula  to  the  officials  ordering  them  to  render  all  aid  to  the 
inquisitors.^ 

They  had  not  waited  for  this  to  organize  their  tribunal,  with 
Doctor  Juan  Ruiz  de  Medina  as  assessor  and  Juan  Lopez  del 
Barco,  a  chaplain  of  the  queen,  as  promotor  fiscal  or  prosecuting 
oflacer.     To  these  were  added.  May  13,  1481,  Diego  de  Merlo, 


*  Archive  General  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  1.    See  Appendix. 
'  Fidel  Fita,  Boletin,  XVI,  452. — Llorente,  Hist.  Crit.  cap.  v,  art.  ii. — Relacion 
historica  de  la  Juderia  de  Sevilla,  p.  22  (SeviUa,  1849). 


Chap.  IV]  COMMENCEMENT  AT  SEVILLE  161 

assistente  or  corregidor  of  SeviHe,  and  the  Licentiate  Ferrand 
Yailez  de  Lobon  as  receivers  of  confiscations — an  indispensable 
office  in  view  of  the  profits  of  persecution.  AH  soon  found  plenty 
of  work.  The  Conversos  of  Seville  had  not  been  unmindful  of 
the  coming  tempest.  Many  of  them  had  fled  to  the  lands 
of  the  neighboring  nobles,  in  the  expectation  that  feudal 
jurisdictions  would  protect  them,  even  against  a  spiritual  court 
such  as  that  of  the  Inquisition.  To  prevent  this  change 
of  domicile  a  royal  decree  ordered  that  no  one  should  leave  any 
place  where  inquisitors  were  holding  their  tribunal,  but  in  the 
general  terror  this  arbitrary  command  received  scant  obedience. 
A  more  efficient  step  was  a  proclamation  addressed,  on  January 
2,  1481,  to  the  Marquis  of  Cadiz  and  other  nobles  by  the  frailes 
Miguel  and  Juan.  This  proved  that  no  error  had  been  made  in 
the  selection  of  those  who  were  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the 
Inquisition  and  that  a  new  era  had  opened  for  Spain.  The  two 
simple  friars  spoke  with  an  assured  audacity  to  grandees  who 
had  been  wont  to  treat  with  their  sovereigns  on  almost  equal 
terms — an  audacity  which  must  have  appeared  incredible  to 
those  to  whom  it  was  addressed,  but  to  which  Spain  in  time 
became  accustomed  from  the  Holy  Office.  The  great  Rodrigo 
Ponce  de  Leon  and  all  other  nobles  were  commanded  to  search 
their  territories,  to  seize  all  strangers  and  newcomers  and  to 
deliver  them  within  fifteen  days  at  the  prison  of  the  Inquisition; 
to  sequestrate  their  property  and  confide  it,  properly  inven- 
toried, to  trustworthy  persons  who  should  account  for  it  to  the 
king  or  to  the  inquisitors.  In  vigorous  language  they  were  told 
that  any  failure  in  obeying  these  orders  would  bring  upon  them 
excommunication  removable  only  by  the  inquisitors  or  their 
superiors,  with  forfeiture  of  rank  and  possessions  and  the  release 
of  their  vassals  from  allegiance  and  from  all  payments  due — a 
release  which  the  inquisitors  assumed  to  grant  in  advance,  add- 
ing that  they  would  prosecute  them  as  fautors,  receivers  and 
defenders  of  heretics.^  This  portentous  utterance  was  effective: 
the  number  of  prisoners  was  speedily  so  great  that  the  convent 
of  San  Pablo,  which  the  inquisitors  at  first  occupied,  became 

^  Boletin,  XV,  453-7.  This  was  fairly  within  the  rules  of  the  canon  law  but  it 
did  not  put  an  end  to  the  sheltering  of  fugitives  from  the  Inquisition  by  nobles 
who  doubtless  found  it  profitable.  In  some  instructions  issued  by  Torquemada, 
December  6,  1484,  there  is  one  regulating  the  relations  between  such  nobles  and 
the  receiver  of  confiscations. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  933. 

11 


162  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

insufficient  and  thej^  obtained  permission  to  establish  them- 
selves in  the  great  fortress  of  Triana,  the  stronghold  of  Seville, 
of  which  the  immense  size  and  the  gloomy  dungeons  rendered 
it  appropriate  for  the  work  in  hand/ 

There  were  other  Conversos,  however,  who  imagined  that 
resistance  was  preferable  to  ffight.  Diego  de  Susan,  one  of  the 
leading  citizens  of  Seville,  whose  wealth  was  estimated  at  ten 
millions  of  maravedis,  assembled  some  of  his  prominent  brethren 
of  Seville,  Utrera  and  Carmona  to  deliberate  as  to  their  action. 
The  meeting  was  held  in  the  church  of  San  Salvador  and  com- 
prised ecclesiastics  of  high  rank,  magistrates  and  officials  belong- 
ing to  the  threatened  class.  Civic  tumults  had  been  so  customary 
a  resource,  when  any  object  was  to  be  gained,  that  Susan  naturally 
suggested,  in  a  fiery  speech,  that  they  should  recruit  faithful 
men,  collect  a  store  of  arms,  and  that  the  first  arrest  by  the 
inquisitors  should  be  the  signal  of  a  rising  in  which  the  inquisi- 
tors should  be  slain  and  thus  an  emphatic  warning  be  given  to 
deter  others  from  renewing  the  attempt.  In  spite  of  some  faint- 
heartedness manifested  by  one  or  two  of  those  present,  the  plan 
was  adopted  and  steps  were  taken  to  carry  it  out.  When  Pedro 
Fernandez  Venedera,  mayordomo  of  the  cathedral,  one  of  the 
conspirators,  was  arrested,  weapons  to  arm  a  hundred  men 
were  found  in  his  house,  showing  how  active  were  the  prepara- 
tions on  foot.  The  plot  would  doubtless  have  been  executed 
and  have  led  to  a  massacre,  such  as  we  have  so  often  seen  in  the 
Spanish  cities,  but  for  a  daughter  of  Diego  Susan,  whose  loveli- 
ness had  won  for  her  the  name  of  the  Fermosa  Femhra.  She  was 
involved  in  an  intrigue  with  a  Christian  caballero,  to  whom  she 


^  Bemaldez,  cap.  xliv.  The  castle  of  Triana  continued  to  be  the  seat  of  the 
Inquisition  of  Seville  until  1626,  when  it  was  threatened  with  ruin  b}'  the  inunda- 
tions of  the  Guadalquivir,  and  the  tribunal  was  removed  to  the  palace  of  the 
Caballeros  Tellos  Taveros  in  the  Colacion  de  San  Marcos.  In  1639  it  returned 
to  the  castle,  which  had  been  repaired  and  it  remained  thereuntil  1789,  when  the 
continual  encroachment  of  the  river  caused  its  transfer  to  the  Colegio  known  as 
las  Becas. — Varfiora,  Compendio  historico-descriptivo  de  Sevilla,  P.  ii,  cap.  1 
(Sevilla,  1789). — Zuniga,  Annales  de  Sevilla,  ano  1693,  n.  1. 

The  Counts  of  San  Lucar  were  hereditary  alcaides  of  Triana ;  in  return  for  sur- 
rendering the  castle  they  received  the  ofRce  of  alguazil  mayor  of  the  Inquisition, 
which  continued  to  be  held  by  their  representatives  the  Marquises  of  Leganes — 
a  bargain  which  was  ratified  by  Philip  IV,  November  8,  1634.  In  1707  the  office 
was  valued  at  150,000  maravedfs  a  year,  out  of  which  the  holder  provided  a 
deputy. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Legajo  1465,  fol.  105. 


Chap.  IV]  THE  FIRST  AUTO  DE  FE  163 

revealed  the  secret  and  it  was  speedily  conveyed  to  the  inquisi- 
tors/ 

Nothing  could  better  have  suited  their  purpose.  If  there 
had  been  any  feeling  of  opposition  to  them  on  the  part  of  the 
authorities  it  disappeared  and  the  most  important  members  of 
the  Converso  community  were  in  their  power.  Diego  de  Merlo, 
the  assistente  of  Seville,  arrested  at  the  bidding  of  the  inquisitors 
the  richest  and  most  honorable  Conversos,  magistrates  and 
dignitaries,  who  were  confined  in  San  Pablo  and  thence  trans- 
ferred to  the  castle  of  Triana.  The  trials  were  prompt  and  at 
the  rendering  of  sentence  a  consulta  de  fe  or  assembly  of  experts 
was  convoked,  consisting  of  lawyers  and  the  provisor  of  the 
bishopric,  thus  recognizing  the  necessity  of  concurrent  action 
on  the  part  of  the  episcopal  jurisdiction.  AYhat  justified  the 
sentence  of  burning  it  would  be  difficult  to  say.  It  was  not 
obstinate  heresy  for  one  at  least  of  the  victims  is  stated  to  have 
died  as  a  good  Christian;  it  could  not  have  been  the  plot,  for 
this,  in  so  far  as  it  was  an  ecclesiastical  offence,  was  merely 
impeding  the  Inquisition,  and  even  the  assassins  of  St.  Peter 
Martyr,  when  they  professed  repentance,  were  admitted  to 
penance.  It  was  a  new  departure,  in  disregard  of  all  the  canons, 
and  it  gave  warning  that  the  New  Inquisition  of  Spain  was  not 
to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Old,  but  was  to  mark  out  for 
itself  a  yet  bloodier  and  more  terrible  career.^ 

Justice  was  prompt  and  the  first  auto  de  fe  was  celebrated 
February  6,  1481,  when  six  men  and  women  were  burnt  and  the 
sermon  was  preached  by  Fray  Alonso  de  Hojeda,  who  now  saw 

^  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  247-8. — Bemaldez,  cap.  xliii. — Fidel  Fita,  Boletin, 
XVI,  450  sqq.,  557  sqq. 

As  the  parricide  committed  by  the  Fermosa  Fembra  entailed  poverty  and  dis- 
grace on  her,  through  the  confiscation  of  her  father's  property  and  the  disabilities 
inflicted  on  his  descendants,  the  Church  interested  itself  in  her  fate.  Rainaldo 
Romero,  Bishop  of  Tiberias,  secured  for  her  entrance  into  a  convent,  but  it  can 
readily  be  understood  that  life  there  was  not  rendered  pleasant  to  her  and  she 
quitted  it,  without  taking  the  vows,  to  follow  a  career  of  shame.  Her  beautj'  dis- 
appeared and  she  died  in  want,  leaving  directions  that  her  skull  should  be  placed 
as  a  warning  over  the  door  of  the  house  which  had  been  the  scene  of  her  dis- 
orderly life.  Her  wishes  were  obeyed  and  it  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  Calle  del 
Artaud,  near  its  entrance,  hard  by  the  Alcdzar. — Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  249. 

'  Bemaldez,  cap.  xliv.  Rodrigo  tells  us  (Hist,  verdadera  de  la  Inquisicion, 
II,  74-6)  that  only  five  were  burnt  who  refused  all  offers  of  reconciliation  and 
were  impenitent  to  the  last,  but  the  contemporary  Bemaldez  says  that  Diego 
de  Susan  died  as  a  good  Christian  in  the  second  auto. 


164  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

the  efforts  of  so  many  years  crowned  with  success.  He  might 
well  say  nunc  demittis,  for  though  a  second  auto  followed  in  a 
few  days  his  eyes  were  not  to  rejoice  at  the  holy  spectacle,  for 
the  pestilence  which  was  to  carry  off  fifteen  thousand  of  the 
people  of  Seville  was  now  commencing  and  he  was  one  of  the 
earliest  victims.  In  the  second  auto  there  were  only  three  burn- 
ings, Diego  de  Susan,  Manuel  Sauli  and  Bartolome  de  Torralba, 
three  of  the  wealthiest  and  most  important  citizens  of  Seville. 
As  though  to  show  that  the  work  thus  begun  was  to  be  an 
enduring  one,  a  quemadero,  brasero,  or  burning-place  was  con- 
structed in  the  Campo  de  Tablada,  so  massively  that  its  founda- 
tions can  still  be  traced.  On  four  pillars  at  the  corners  were 
erected  statues  of  the  prophets  in  plaster-of-Paris,  apparently 
to  indicate  that,  although  technically  the  burning  was  the  work 
of  secular  justice,  it  was  performed  at  the  command  of  religion.^ 
Further  arrests  and  burnings  promptly  followed,  the  wealth 
and  prominence  of  the  victims  proving  that  here  was  a  tribunal 
which  was  no  respecter  of  persons  and  that  money  or  favor 
could  avail  nothing  against  its  rigid  fanaticism.  The  flight 
of  the  terror-stricken  Conversos  was  stimulated  afresh,  but  the 
Inquisition  was  not  thus  to  be  balked  of  its  prey;  flight  was  for- 
bidden and  guards  were  placed  at  the  gates,  where  so  many 
were  arrested  that  no  place  of  confinement  sufficiently  capacious 
for  them  could  be  found,  yet  notwithstanding  this  great  num- 
bers escaped  to  the  lands  of  the  nobles,  to  Portugal  and  to  the 
Moors.  The  plague  now  began  to  rage  with  violence,  God  and 
man  seemed  to  be  uniting  for  the  destruction  of  the  unhappy 
Conversos,  and  they  petitioned  Diego  de  Merlo  to  allow  them  to 
save  their  lives  by  leaving  the  pest-ridden  city.  The  request 
was  humanely  granted  to  those  who  could  procure  passes,  on 
condition  that  they  should  leave  their  property  behind  and  only 
take  with  them  what  was  necessary  for  immediate  use.  Under 
these  regulations  multitudes  departed,  more  than  eight  thou- 


*  Bemaldez,  cap.  xliv. — Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  250.  —  Field's  Old  Spain 
and  New  Spain,  p.  279. 

The  remark  of  the  good  Cura  de  los  Palacios  in  describing  the  quemadero  is 
"en  que  los  quemaban  y  fasta  que  haya  heregfa  los  quemaran."  The  cost  of  the 
four  statues  was  defrayed  by  a  gentleman  named  Mesa,  whose  zeal  won  for  him 
the  position  of  familiar  of  the  Holy  Office  and  receiver  of  confiscations.  He  was, 
however,  discovered  to  be  a  Judaizer  and  was  himself  burnt  on  the  quemadero 
which  he  had  adorned. — Rodrigo,  II,  79-80. 


Chap.  IV]  THE  TERM  OF  GRACE 


165 


sand  finding  refuge  at  Mairena,  Marchena  and  Palacios.  The 
Marquis  of  Cadiz,  the  Duke  of  Medina  Sidonia  and  other  nobles 
received  them  hospitably,  but  many  kept  on  to  Portugal  or  to 
the  Moors  and  some,  we  are  told,  even  found  refuge  in  Rome. 
The  inquisitors  themselves  were  obHged  to  abandon  the  city, 
but  their  zeal  allowed  of  no  respite;  they  removed  their  tribunal 
to  Aracena,  where  they  found  ample  work  to  do,  burning  there 
twenty-three  men  and  women,  besides  the  corpses  and  bones  of 
numerous  deceased  heretics,  exhumed  for  the  purpose.  When 
the  pestilence  diminished  they  returned  to  Seville  and  resumed 
their  work  there  with  unrelaxing  ardor.^  According  to  a  con- 
temporary, by  the  fourth  of  November  they  had  burnt  two  hun- 
dred and  ninety-eight  persons  and  had  condemned  seventy-nine 
to  perpetual  prison.^ 

As  novices,  it  would  seem  that  the  zeal  of  the  inquisitors  had 
plunged  them  into  the  business  of  arresting  and  trying  suspects 
without  resorting  to  the  prehminary  device,  which  had  been 
found  useful  in  the  earliest  operations  of  the  Holy  Office— the 
Term  of  Grace.  This  was  a  period,  longer  or  shorter  according 
to  the  discretion  of  the  inquisitors,  during  which  those  who  felt 
themselves  guilty  could  come  forward  and  confess,  when  they 
would  be  reconciled  to  the  Church  and  subjected  to  penance, 
pecuniary  and  otherwise,  severe  enough,  but  preferable  to  the 
stake.  One  of  the  conditions  was  that  of  stating  all  that  they 
knew  of  other  heretics  and  apostates,  which  proved  an  exceed- 
ingly fruitful  source  of  information  as,  under  the  general  terror, 
there  was  Httle  hesitation  in  denouncing  not  only  friends  and 
acquaintances,  but  the  nearest  and  dearest  kindred— parents 
and  children  and  brothers  and  sisters.  No  better  means  of 
detecting  the  hidden  ramifications  of  Judaism  could  be  devised 
and,  towards  the  middle  of  the  year  1481,  the  inquisitors  adopted 
it.^  The  mercy  thus  promised  was  scanty,  as  we  shall  see  here- 
after when  we  come  to  consider  the  subject,  but  it  brought  in 
vast  numbers  and  autos  de  fe  were  organized  in  which  they  were 
paraded  as  penitents,  no  less  than  fifteen  hundred  being  ex- 
hibited in  one  of  these  solemnities.  It  can  readily  be  conceived 
how  soon  the  inquisitors  were  in  possession  of  information  in- 

*  Bemaldez,  cap.  xliv.  *  Llorente,  Anales  de  la  Inquisicion,  I,  44. 

'  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  252.  Rodrigo  (Hist.  Verdad.  II,  76)  states  that  the 
first  act  of  the  inquisitors  was  the  issue  of  the  proclamation  of  the  Term  of  Grace 
on  January  2d,  but  this  is  scarce  consistent  with  the  narrative  of  Bemaldez. 


166  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

culpating  Converses  in  every  corner  of  the  land.  It  was  freely 
asserted  that  they  were  all  in  reality  Jews,  who  were  waiting 
for  God  to  lead  them  out  of  the  worse  than  Egyptian  bondage 
in  which  they  were  held  by  the  Christians.^  Thus  was  demon- 
strated not  only  the  necessity  of  the  Inquisition  but  of  its  exten- 
sion throughout  Spain.  The  evil  was  too  great  and  its  imme- 
diate repression  too  important  for  the  work  to  be  entrusted  to 
the  two  friars  laboring  so  zealously  in  Seville.  Permission  had 
been  obtained  only  for  the  appointment  of  three  and  application 
was  made  to  Sixtus  IV  for  additional  powers.  On  this  occasion 
he  did  not  as  before  allow  the  commissions  to  be  granted  in  the 
name  of  the  sovereigns  but  issued  them  direct  to  those  nominated 
to  him  by  them,  whereby  the  inquisitors  held  their  faculties 
immediately  from  the  Holy  See.  Thus  by  a  brief  of  February 
11,  1482,  he  commissioned  seven — Pedro  Ocaiio,  Pedro  Martinez 
de  Barrio,  Alfonso  de  San  Cebriano,  Rodrigo  Segarra,  Thomas 
de  Torquemada  and  Bernardo  Santa  Maria,  all  Dominicans.^ 
StiU  more  were  required,  of  whose  appointments  we  have  no 
definite  knowledge,  to  man  the  tribunals  which  were  speedily 
formed  at  Ciudad-Real,  Cordova,  Jaen,  and  possibly  at  Segovia.^ 
The  one  at  Ciudad-Real  was  intended  for  the  great  archi- 
episcopal  province  of  Toledo,  to  which  city  it  was  transferred 
in  1485.  The  reason  why  it  was  first  established  at  the  former 
place  may  perhaps  be  that  the  warlike  Archbishop  Alonso  Car- 

1  Bemaldez,  cap.  xliv.  ^  paramo,  p.  136.— Boletin,  XV,  462. 

It  is  very  questionable  whether  a  tribunal  was  established  at  Segovia  thus 
early.  Colmenares  (Hist,  de  Segovia,  cap.  xxxiv,  §  18)  asserts  it  positively,  but 
the  only  tribunals  represented  in  the  assembly  of  organization,  held  in  Novem- 
ber, 1484,  were  Seville,  Cordova,  Jaen  and  Ciudad-Real.  There  was  at  first  some 
resistance  at  Segovia  on  the  part  of  the  bishop,  Juan  Arias  Ddvila,  who  was  of 
Jewish  descent. — Bergenroth,  Calendar  of  Spanish  State  Papers,  I,  xlv. 

In  Ciudad-Real,  the  earliest  inquisitors,  in  1483,  were  the  Licentiate  Pedro 
Dfaz  de  la  Costana  and  the  Doctor  Francisco  de  la  Fuente  (Archivo  hist,  nacional, 
Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Legajo  154,  n.  375).  Neither  of  these  was  a  Dominican 
and  the  latter  subsequently  became  an  inquisitor-general  and  bishop  successively 
of  Avila  and  of  Cordova. 

In  Cordova  the  Inquisition  was  established  in  1482,  with  four  inquisitors — the 
BachiUeres  Anton  Ruiz  de  Morales  and  Alvar  Gonzdlez  de  CapiUas,  Doctor  Pedro 
Martinez  de  Barrio,  and  Fray  Martin  Cazo,  Guardian  of  the  Franciscan  convent. 
The  first  auto  de  fe  was  celebrated  in  1483,  when  one  of  the  victims  was  the  con- 
cubine of  the  treasurer  of  the  cathedral,  Pedro  Fernandez  de  Alcaudete,  who 
himself  was  burnt  on  February  28,  1484.  His  servants  resisted  his  arrest  and  in 
the  fray  the  alguazil  of  the  Inquisition  was  kiUed. — Matute  y  Luquin,  Autos  de 
Fe  de  Cordova,  pp.  1-2  (Cordova,  1839). 


Chap.  IV]  CIUDAD-BEAL  AND  TOLEDO 


167 


rillo,  whether  through  zeal  for  the  faith  or  in  order  to  assert  his 
episcopal  juriscUction  over  heresy  and  prevent  the  intrusion  of  the 
papal  inquisitors,  had  appointed  before  his  death,  July  1,  1482,  a 
certain  Doctor  Thomas  as  inquisitor  in  Toledo.    To  what  extent 
the  latter  performed  his  functions  we  have  no  means  of  knowing, 
the  only  trace  of  his  activity  being  the  production  and  incor- 
poration, in  the  records  of  subsequent  trials  by  the  Inquisition 
of  Ciudad-Real,  of  evidence  taken  by  him/    Be  this  as  it  may  the 
Inquisition  of  Ciudad-Real  was  not  organized  until  the  latter 
half  of  1483.     It  commenced  by  issuing  an  Edict  of  Grace  for 
thirty  days,  at  the  expiration  of  which  it  extended  the  time 
for  another  thirty  days.     Meanwhile  it  was  busily  employed, 
throughout  October  and  November,  in  making  a  general  inquest 
and  taking  testimony  from  all  who  would  come  forward  to  give 
evidence.     In  the  resultant  trials  the  names  of  some  of  the  wit- 
nesses appear  with  suspicious  frequency  and  the  nature  of  their 
reckless  general  assertions,  without  personal  knowledge,  shows 
how  flimsy  was  much  of  the  evidence  on  which  prosecutions 
were  based.    That  the  inquest  was  thorough  and  that  every  one 
who  knew  anything  damaging  to  a  Converso  was  brought  up  to 
state  it  may  be  assumed  from  the  trial  of  Sancho  de  Ciudad  in 
which   the  evidence  of  no  less  than  thirty-four  witnesses  was 
recorded,  some  of  them  testifying  to  incidents  happening  twenty 
years  previous.     Much  of  this  moreover  indicates  the  careless 
security  in  which  the  Conversos  had  lived  and  allowed  their 
Jewish  practices  to  be  known  to  Christian  servants  and  acquaint- 
ances with  whom  they  were  in  constant  intercourse.     The  first 
public  manifestation  of  results  seems  to  have  been  an  auto  de  fe 
held  November  16th,  in  the  church  of  San  Pedro,  for  the  recon- 
ciliation of  penitents  who  had  come  forward  during  the  Term  of 
Grace.^    Soon  after  this  the  trials  of  those  impHcated  commenced 
and  were  prosecuted  with  such  vigor  that,  on  February  6,  1484, 
an  auto  de  fe  was  held  in  which  four  persons  were  burnt,  followed 
on  the  23d  and  24th  of  the  same  month  by  an  imposing  solemnity 
involving  the  concremation  of  thirty  living  men  and  women 


^  "  En  publica  forma  e  se  avia  fecho  en  esta  dicha  ciudad  por  el  Doctor  Thomds, 
juez  delegado  e  inquisidor  deputado  por  el  reverendisimo  sefior  Don  Alfonso 
Carrillo,  arzobispo  que  fue  deste  dicho  arzobispado  de  Toledo." — Arch.  hist, 
nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Legajos  139,  n.  145;  143,  n.  196. 

2  Ibidem,  Legajos  139,  n.  145;  154,  n.  356,  375. 


168  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQ  UISITION  [Book  I 

and  the  bones  and  effigies  of  forty  who  were  dead  or  fugitives.^ 
In  its  two  years  of  existence  the  tribunal  of  Ciudad-Real  burnt 
fifty-two  obstinate  heretics,  condemned  two  hundred  and  twenty 
fugitives  and  reconciled  one  hundred  and  eighty-three  penitents.^ 

In  1485  the  tribunal  of  Ciudad-Real  was  transferred  to  the 
city  of  Toledo  where  the  Conversos  were  very  numerous  and 
wealthy.  They  organized  a  plot  to  raise  a  tumult  and  despatch 
the  inquisitors  during  the  procession  of  Corpus  Christi  (June  2d) 
but,  as  in  the  case  of  Seville,  it  was  betrayed  and  six  of  the  con- 
spirators were  hanged,  after  which  we  hear  of  no  further  trouble 
there.  Those  who  were  first  arrested  confessed  that  the  design 
extended  to  seizing  the  city  gates  and  cathedral  tower  and  hold- 
ing the  place  against  the  sovereigns.^ 

The  inquisitor,  Pedro  Diaz,  had  preached  the  first  sermon  on 
Ma}'-  24th,  and,  after  the  defeat  of  the  conspiracy,  the  tribunal 
entered  vigorously  on  its  functions.  The  customary  Term  of 
Grace  of  forty  days  was  proclaimed  and  after  some  delay  we 
are  told  that  many  applied  for  reconciliation  rather  through 
fear  of  concremation  than  through  good  will.  After  the  expira- 
tion of  the  forty  days,  letters  of  excommunication  were  published 
against  all  cognizant  of  heresy  who  should  not  denounce  it  within 
sixty  days — a  term  subsequently  extended  by  thirty  more. 
Another  very  effectual  expedient  was  adopted  by  summoning 
the  Jewish  rabbis  and  requiring  them,  under  penalt)^  of  life  and 
property,  to  place  a  major  excommunication  on  their  syna- 
gogues and  not  remove  it  until  all  the  members  should  have 
revealed  everything  within  their  knowledge  respecting  Judaizing 
Christians.  This  was  only  perfecting  a  device  that  had  already 
been  employed  elsewhere.  In  1484,  by  a  cedula  of  December 
10th,  Ferdinand  had  ordered  the  magistrates  of  all  the  principal 
towns  in  Aragon  to  compel,  by  all  methods  recognized  in  law, 
the  rabbis  and  sacristans  of  the  synagogues  and  such  other  Jews 
as  might  be  named,  to  tell  the  truth  as  to  all  that  might  be  asked 
of  them,  and  in  Seville  we  are  told  that  a  prominent  Jew,  Judah 
Ibn-Verga,  expatriated  himself  to  avoid  compliance  with  a  similar 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Legajo  262. 

^  Pdramo,  p.  170. — Padre  Fidel  Fita  has  compiled  a  chronological  list  of  the 
trials  at  Ciudad-Real  preserved  in  the  Archive  Hist.  Nacional  (Boletin,  XI,  311 
sqq.).  These  are  included  in  the  Catdlogo  de  las  Causas  contra  la  Fe  seguidas  ante 
el  Tribunal  del  Santo  Oficio  de  Toledo,  by  D.  Miguel  Gomez  del  Campillo  (Madrid, 
1903). 

'  Relacion  de  la  Inquisicion  Toledana  (Boletin,  XI,  293). 


Chap.  IV]  PENITENTS  IN  TOLEDO  169 

demand.  The  quality  of  the  evidence  obtained  by  such  means 
may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that  when,  in  the  assembly 
of  Valladolid,  in  1488,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  investigated  the 
affairs  of  the  Inquisition,  it  was  found  that  many  Jews  testified 
falsely  against  Conversos  in  order  to  encompass  their  ruin,  for 
which  some  of  those  against  which  this  was  proved  were  lapidated 
in  Toledo.  Whether  true  or  false,  the  Toledan  Inquisition  reaped 
by  these  methods  a  plentiful  harvest  of  important  revelations. 
It  is  easy,  in  fact,  to  imagine  the  terror  pervading  the  Converse 
community  and  the  eagerness  with  which  the  unfortunates 
would  come  forward  to  denounce  themselves  and  their  kindred 
and  friends,  especially  when,  after  the  expiration  of  the  ninety 
days,  arrests  began  and  quickly  followed  each  other. ^ 

The  penitents  were  allowed  to  accumulate  and  at  the  first 
auto  de  fe,  held  Februar}'  12,  1486,  only  those  of  seven  parishes 
— San  Vicente,  San  Nicolas,  San  Juan  de  la  leche,  Santa  Yusta, 
San  Miguel,  San  Yuste,  and  San  Lorenzo — were  summoned  to 
appear.  These  amounted  to  seven  hundred  and  fifty  of  both 
sexes,  comprising  many  of  the  principal  citizens  and  persons  of 
quality.  The  ceremony  was  painful  and  humiliating.  Bare- 
headed and  barefooted,  except  that,  in  consideration  of  the  in- 
tense cold,  they  were  allowed  to  wear  soles,  carrying  unlighted 
candles  and  surrounded  by  a  howling  mob  which  had  gathered 
from  all  the  country  around,  they  were  marched  in  procession 
through  the  city  to  the  cathedral,  at  the  portal  of  which  stood 
two  priests  who  marked  them  on  the  forehead  as  they  entered 
with  the  sign  of  the  cross,  saying  "Receive  the  sign  of  the  cross 
which  you  have  denied  and  lost."  When  inside  they  were  called 
one  by  one  before  the  inquisitors  while  a  statement  of  their  mis- 
deeds was  read.  They  were  fined  in  one-fifth  of  all  their  property 
for  the  war  with  the  Moors;  they  were  subjected  to  lifelong 


*  Relacion  de  la  Inquisicion  Toledana  (Boletin,  XI,  293-4). — Arch.  Gen.  de  la 
Corona  de  Aragon,  Reg.  3S64,  fol.  31.— Graetz,  Geschichte  der  Juden,  VIII,  323. 
— Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  iii,  cap.  100. 

Legally,  Jews  were  not  allowed  to  testify  against  Christians  and  the  prohibition 
to  receive  such  evidence  was  emphatically  included  in  the  ferocious  bull  of 
Nicholas  V,  in  1447,  but,  as  we  shall  see,  in  the  Inquisition,  all  accusing  witnesses, 
however  infamous,   were  welcomed. 

How  distasteful  Ferdinand  knew  would  be  the  work  prescribed  to  the  Aragonese 
magistracy  is  seen  by  his  imperious  command  that  it  must  be  done — "  e  por  cosa 
del  mundo  no  fagais  lo  contrario  ni  recusals  de  lo  facer  porque  nos  seria  tan 
molesto  que  no  lo  podriamos  con  paciencia  tolerar." 


170  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

incapacity  to  hold  office  or  to  pursue  honorable  avocations  or 
to  wear  other  than  the  coarsest  vestments  unadorned,  under 
pain  of  burning  for  relapse,  and  they  were  required  to  march  in 
procession  on  six  Fridays,  bareheaded  and  barefooted,  cUsci- 
plining  themselves  with  hempen  cords/  The  loving  mother 
Church  could  not  welcome  back  to  her  bosom  her  erring  children 
without  a  sharp  and  wholesome  warning,  nor  did  she  relax  her 
vigilance,  for  this  perilous  process  of  confession  and  reconcilia- 
tion was  so  devised  as  to  furnish  many  subsequent  victims  to 
the  stake,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter. 

The  second  auto  was  held  on  April  2,  1486,  where  nine  hun- 
dred penitents  appeared  from  the  parishes  of  San  Roman,  San 
Salvador,  San  Cristoval,  San  Zoil,  Sant  Andres  and  San  Pedro. 
The  third  auto,  on  June  11th,  consisted  of  some  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  from  Santa  Olalla,  San  Tomas,  San  Martin  and  Sant 
Antolin.  The  city  being  thus  disposed  of,  the  various  archidia- 
conates  of  the  district  were  taken  in  order.  That  of  Toledo 
furnished  nine  hundred  penitents  on  December  10th,  when  we 
are  told  that  they  sufi'ered  greatly  from  the  cold.  On  January 
15,  1487,  there  were  about  seven  hundred  from  the  archidia- 
conate  of  Alcaraz  and  on  March  10th,  from  those  of  Talavera, 
Madrid  and  Guadalajara  about  twelve  hundred,  some  of  whom 
were  condemned  in  addition  to  wear  the  sanbenito  for  life.  AYhile 
the  more  or  less  voluntary  penitents  were  thus  treated  there 
were  numerous  autos  de  fe  celebrated  of  a  more  serious  charac- 
ter in  which  there  were  a  good  many  burnings,  including  not  a 
few  frailes  and  ecclesiastical  dignitaries,  as  well  as  cases  of  fugi- 
tives and  of  the  dead,  who  were  burned  in  effigy  and  their  estates 
confiscated.^  

^  Relacion  de  la  Inquisicion  Toledana  (Boletin,  XI,  295-6). 

In  1629  a  well-informed  writer  tells  us  that  many  of  those  who  came  forward 
and  thus  accused  themselves  were  in  reality  good  Christians,  who,  in  the  time 
wliile  Jews  were  yet  tolerated,  had  associated  with  them  in  their  synagogues  and 
weddings  and  funerals  and  had  bought  meat  of  their  butchers.  Terrified  at  the 
proceedings  of  the  Inquisition  they  came  and  confessed  and  were  reconciled, 
thus  casting  an  indelible  stain  on  their  posterity  when  the  records  of  the  tri- 
bunals were  searched  and  their  names  were  found. — Tratado  de  los  Estatutos 
de  Lunpieza,  cap.  10  (Bibl.  Nac.  Seccion  de  MSS.  Q,  418). 

2  Relacion  (Ibid.  pp.  292  sqq.,  297,  299,  301-2,  303). 

In  the  closing  years  of  the  fifteenth  century  and  the  opening  ones  of  the  six- 
teenth there  seems  to  have  been  a  special  raid  made  on  Guadalajara.  In  a  list 
of  cases  of  that  period  I  find  965  credited  to  that  place. — Arch.  Hist.  Nacional, 
Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  262,  n.  1. 


Chap.  IV]  TRIBUNAL  OF  GUADALUPE  171 

In  1485  a  temporary  tribunal  was  set  up  at  Guadalupe,  where 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  appointed  as  inquisitor  (under  what 
papal  authority  does  not  appear)  Fray  Nuno  de  Arevalo,  prior 
of  the  Geronimite  convent  there.  Apparently  to  guide  his  inex- 
perience Doctor  Francisco  de  la  Fuente  was  transferred  from 
Ciudad-Real  and,  with  another  colleague,  the  Licentiate  Pedro 
Sanchez  de  la  Calancha,  they  piu-ified  the  place  of  heresy  with 
so  much  vigor  that,  within  a  year,  they  held  in  the  cemetery 
before  the  doors  of  the  monastery  seven  autos  de  fe  in  which 
were  burnt  a  heretic  monk,  fifty-two  Judaizers,  forty-eight  dead 
bodies  and  twenty-five  effigies  of  fugitives,  while  sixteen  were 
condemned  to  perpetual  imprisonment  and  innumerable  others 
were  sent  to  the  galleys  or  penanced  with  the  sanbenito  for  life. 
These  energetic  proceecUngs  do  not  appear  to  have  made  good 
Christians  of  those  who  were  spared  for,  July  13,  1500,  Inquisi- 
tor-general Deza  ordered  all  the  Conversos  of  Guadalupe  to  leave 
the  district  and  not  to  return.^  The  same  year,  1485,  saw 
a  tribunal  assigned  to  Valladolid,  but  it  must  have  met  with 
effective  resistance,  for  in  September,  1488,  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  were  obliged  to  visit  the  city  in  order  to  get  it  into 
working  condition;  it  forthwith  commenced  operations  by 
arresting  some  prominent  citizens  and  on  June  19,  1489,  the 
first  auto  de  fe  was  held  in  which  eighteen  persons  were  burnt 
alive  and  the  bones  of  four  dead  heretics.^  Still,  the  existence 
of  this  tribunal  would  seem  to  have  long  remained  uncertain  for, 
as  late  as  December  24,  1498,  we  find  Isabella  writing  to  a  new 
appointee  that  she  and  the  inquisitor-general  have  agreed  that 
the  Inquisition  must  be  placed  there  and  ordering  him  to  pre- 
pare to  undertake  it,  and  then  on  January  22,  1501,  telling 
Inquisitor-general  Deza  that  she  approves  of  its  lodgement  in  the 
house  of  Diego  de  la  Baeza,  where  it  is  to  remain  for  the  present; 
she  adds  that  she  and  Ferdinand  have  written  to  the  Count  of 
Cabra  to  see  that  for  the  future  the  inquisitors  are  well  treated.^ 
Permanent  tribunals  were  also  established  in  Llerena  and  Murcia, 

^  Pdramo,  pp.  138-9.— Fidel  Fita  in  Boletin,  XXIII,  284  s??.— Archive  de 
Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  939,  fol.  108. 

^  Toledo,  Cronicon  de  Valladolid  (Coleccion  de  Documentos  ineditos,  XIII, 
176,  179).— Pulgar,  Chron.  P.  in,  cap.  100. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  I.  Unfortunately  my  copy  of  this 
important  volume  and  also  of  Libro  933  are  not  foUoed.  The  dates  of  the  docu- 
ments however  will  sufficiently  guide  the  investigator  desirous  of  verifying  the 
references. 


172  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

of  the  early  records  of  all  of  which  we  know  little.  In  1490  a 
temporary  one  was  organized  in  Avila  by  Torquemada,  appar- 
ently for  the  purpose  of  trying  those  accused  of  the  murder  of 
the  Santo  Nino  de  la  Guardia;  it  continued  active  until  1500 
and  during  these  ten  years  there  were  hung  in  the  church  the 
insignias  y  mantetas  of  seventy-five  victims  burnt  alive,  of 
twenty-six  dead  and  of  one  fugitive,  besides  the  sanbenitos  of 
seventy-one  reconciled  penitents/ 

The  various  provinces  of  Castile  thus  became  provided  with 
the  machinery  requisite  for  the  extermination  of  heresy,  and 
at  an  early  period  in  its  development  it  was  seen  that,  for  the 
enormous  work  before  it,  some  more  compact  and  centralized 
organization  was  desirable  than  had  hitherto  been  devised. 
The  Inquisition  which  had  been  so  effective  in  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries  was  scattered  over  Europe;  its  judges 
were  appointed  by  the  Dominican  or  Franciscan  provincials, 
using  a  course  of  procedure  and  obeying  instructions  which 
emanated  from  the  Holy  See.  The  papacy  was  the  only  link 
between  them;  the  individual  inquisitors  were  to  a  great  extent 
independent;  they  were  not  subjected  to  visitation  or  inspection 
and  it  was,  if  not  impossible,  a  matter  of  difficulty  to  call  them  to 
account  for  the  manner  in  which  they  might  discharge  their  func- 
tions. Such  was  not  the  conception  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
who  intended  the  Spanish  Inquisition  to  be  a  national  institution, 
strongly  organized  and  owing  obedience  to  the  crown  much 
more  than  to  the  Holy  See.  The  measures  which  they  adopted 
with  this  object  were  conceived  with  their  customary  sagacity, 
and  were  carried  out  with  their  usual  vigor  and  success. 

At  this  period  they  were  earnestly  engaged  in  reorganizing 
the  institutions  of  Castile,  centralizing  the  administration  and 
reducing  to  order  the  chaos  resulting  from  the  virtual  anarchy 
of  the  preceding  reigns.  In  effecting  this  they  apportioned,  in 
1480,  with  the  consent  of  the  Cortes  of  Toledo,  the  affairs  of 
government  among  four  royal  councils,  that  of  administration 
and  justice,  known  as  the  Concejo  Real  de  Castella,  that  of 


1  A  list  of  these,  made  in  the  last  century,  is  printed  by  Padre  Fidel  Fita 
(Boletin,  XV,  332).  It  is  probably  not  wholly  complete.  Of  later  date  than  1500 
there  are  ten  reconciliados — one  each  in  1509  and  1516  and  eight  in  1629 — sent 
thither  by  the  tribunals  in  which  they  were  tried. 

Further  details  as  to  the  organization  of  the  various  tribunals  will  be  found  in 
the  Appendix. 


Chap.  IV]  ORGANIZATION  173 

Finance,  or  Concejo  de  Hacienda,  the  Concejo  de  Estado  and 
the  Concejo  de  Aragon,  to  which  was  added  a  special  one  for 
the  Hermandades.^  These  met  daily  in  the  palace  for  the  de- 
spatch of  business  and  their  effect  in  making  the  royal  power 
felt  in  every  quarter  of  the  land  and  in  giving  vigor  and  unity 
to  the  management  of  the  state  soon  proved  the  practical  value 
of  the  device.  The  Inquisition  was  fast  looming  up  as  an  affair 
of  state  of  the  first  importance,  while  yet  it  could  scarce  be 
regarded  as  falling  within  the  scope  of  either  of  the  four  councils; 
the  sovereigns  were  too  jealous  of  papal  interference  to  allow  it 
to  drift  aimlessly,  subject  to  directions  from  Rome,  and  their 
uniform  policy  required  that  it  should  be  kept  as  much  as  pos- 
sible under  the  royal  superintendence.  That  a  fifth  council  should 
be  created  for  the  purpose  was  a  natural  expedient,  for  which 
the  assent  of  Sixtus  IV  was  readily  obtained,  when  it  was  organ- 
ized in  1483  under  the  name  of  the  Concejo  de  la  Swprema  y  Gen- 
eral Inquisicion — a  title  conveniently  abbreviated  to  la  Swprema 
— with  jurisdiction  over  all  matters  connected  with  the  faith. 
To  secure  due  subordination  and  discipline  over  the  whole  body 
it  was  requisite  that  the  president  of  this  council  should  have 
full  control  of  appointment  and  dismissal  of  the  individual  in- 
quisitors who,  as  exercising  power  delegated  directl}''  from  the 
pope,  might  otherwise  regard  with  contempt  the  authority  of 
one  who  was  also  merely  a  delegate.  It  thus  became  necessary 
to  create  a  new  office,  unknown  to  the  older  Inquisition — an 
inquisitor-general  who  should  preside  over  the  deliberations  of 
the  council.  The  office  evidently  was  one  which  would  be  of 
immense  weight  and  the  future  of  the  institution  depended 
greatly  on  the  character  of  its  first  chief.  By  the  advice  of  the 
Cardinal  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  Pero  Gonzalez  de  Mendoza,  the 
royal  choice  fell  on  Thomas  de  Torqemada,  the  confessor  of 
the  sovereigns,  who  was  one  of  the  seven  inquisitors  commissioned 
by  the  papal  letter  of  February  11,  1482.  The  other  members 
of  the  council  were  Alonso  Carrillo,  Bishop  of  Mazara  (Sicily) 
and  two  doctors  of  laws,  Sancho  Velasco  de  Cuellar  and  Ponce 
de  Valencia.^    The  exact  date  of  Torquemada's  appointment  is 

*  Colmenares,  Hist,  de  Segovia,  cap.  xxxv,  §  18. — Garibay,  Compendio  His- 
torial,  Lib.  xviii,  cap.  16. 

^  Pdramo,  p.  137. — Llorente,  Anales,  I,  73. — Zurita,  Afiales,  Lib.  xx,  cap. 
xlix. — Instruciones  de  Sevilla,  1484,  Prologo  (Arguello,  fol.  2). — Archive  de 
Alcald,  Estado,  Legajo  2843. 

Li  the  conference  of  Seville  in  1484,  besides  the  inquisitors  and  the  members 


174  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  1 

not  known,  as  the  papal  brief  conferring  it  has  not  been  found, 
but,  as  Sixtus  created  him  Inquisitor  of  Aragon,  Catalonia  and 
Valencia  by  letters  of  October  17,  1483,  his  commission  as 
Inquisitor-general  of  Castile  was  somewhat  antecedent/ 

The  selection  of  Torquemada  justified  the  wisdom  of  the 
sovereigns.  Full  of  pitiless  zeal,  he  developed  the  nascent 
institution  with  unwearied  assiduity.  Rigid  and  unbending, 
he  would  hsten  to  no  compromise  of  what  he  deemed  to  be  his 
duty,  and  in  his  sphere  he  personified  the  union  of  the  spiritual 
and  temporal  swords  which  was  the  ideal  of  all  true  churchmen. 
Under  his  guidance  the  Inquisition  rapidly  took  shape  and 
extended  its  organization  throughout  Spain  and  was  untiring 
and  remorseless  in  the  pursuit  and  punishment  of  the  apostates. 
His  labors  won  him  ample  praise  from  successive  popes.  Already, 
in  1484,  Sixtus  IV  wrote  to  him  that  Cardinal  Borgia  had 
warmly  eulogized  him  for  his  success  in  prosecuting  the  good 
work  throughout  Castile  and  Leon,  adding  "We  have  heard 
this  with  the  greatest  pleasure  and  rejoice  exceedingly  that  you, 
who  are  furnished  with  both  doctrine  and  authority,  have 
directed  your  zeal  to  these  matters  which  contribute  to  the 
praise  of  God  and  the  utihty  of  the  orthodox  faith.  We  commend 
you  in  the  Lord  and  exhort  you,  cherished  son,  to  persevere  with 
tireless  zeal  in  aiding  and  promoting  the  cause  of  the  faith,  by 
doing  which,  as  w^e  are  assured  you  wdll,  you  will  win  our  special 
favor."  Twelve  years  later,  Cardinal  Borgia,  then  pope  under 
the  name  of  Alexander  VI,  assures  him  in  1496,  that  he  cherishes 
him  in  the  very  bowels  of  affection  for  his  immense  labors  in  the 
exaltation  of  the  faith.^     If  we  cannot  wholly  attribute  to  him 


of  the  Council  there  are  mentioned  as  present  Juan  Gutierrez  de  Lachaves,  and 
Tristan  de  Medina,  whom  Llorente  (Anales,  I,  74)  conjectures  to  have  been 
assistants  of  Torquemada. 

1  Folch  de  Cardona,  in  the  Consulta  of  the  Suprema  to  PhiHp  V,  July  18,  1703, 
states  that  the  earliest  bull  in  the  archives  was  one  of  Sixtus  IV  in  1483  appoint- 
ing Torquemada  inquisitor-general  with  power  to  deputize  inquisitors  and  to 
hear  cases  in  the  first  instance.  It  was  not  till  1486  that  Innocent  VIII  granted 
him  appellate  jurisdiction. — Bibl.  Nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  G,  61,  fol.  199. 

The  title  of  Inquisitor-general  was  not  immediately  invented.  In  a  sentence 
pronounced  at  Ciudad-Real,  March  15,  1485,  Torquemada  is  styled  simply  "  juez 
principal  ynquisidor." — Arch.  Hist.  Nac.  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Legajo  165,  n.  551. 

*  Ripoll  Bullar.  Ord.  FF.  Prsedic.  Ill,  630;  IV,  125.  Yet  modern  apologists  do 
not  hesitate  to  argue  that  the  papacy  sought  to  mitigate  the  severity  of  the 
Spanish   Inquisition  (Gams,  Zur  Geschichte  der  spanischen    Staatsinquisition, 


Chap.  IV]  TORQUEMADA  175 

the  spirit  of  ruthless  fanaticism  which  animated  the  Inquisition, 
he  at  least  deserves  the  credit  of  stimulating  and  rendering  it 
efficient  in  its  work  by  organizing  it  and  by  directing  it  with 
dauntless  courage  against  the  suspect  however  high-placed,  until 
the  shadow  of  the  Holy  Office  covered  the  land  and  no  one  was 
so  hardy  as  not  to  tremble  at  its  name.  The  temper  in  which 
he  discharged  his  duties  and  the  absolute  and  irresponsible 
control  which  he  exercised  over  the  subordinate  tribunals  can 
be  fitly  estimated  from  a  single  instance.  There  was  a  fully 
organized  Inquisition  at  Medina,  with  three  inquisitors,  an 
assessor,  a  fiscal  and  other  officials,  assisted  by  the  Abbot  of 
Medina  as  Ordinary.  They  reconciled  some  culprits  and  burnt 
others,  apparently  without  referring  the  cases  to  him,  but  when 
they  found  reason  to  acquit  some  prisoners  they  deemed  it  best 
to  transmit  the  papers  to  him  for  confirmation.  He  demurred 
at  this  mercy  and  told  the  tribunal  to  try  the  accused  again 
when  the  Licentiate  Villalpando  should  be  there  as  visitador. 
Some  months  later  Villalpando  came  there,  the  cases  were 
reviewed,  the  prisoners  were  tortured,  two  of  them  were  recon- 
ciled and  the  rest  acquitted,  the  sentences  being  duly  published 
as  final.  Torquemada  on  learning  this  was  incensed  and  declared 
that  he  would  burn  them  all.  He  had  them  arrested  again  and 
sent  to  Valladolid,  to  be  tried  outside  of  their  district,  where 
his  threat  was  doubtless  carried  into  effect.^  When  such  was 
the  spirit  infused  in  the  organization  at  the  beginning  we 
need  not  wonder  that  verdicts  of  acquittal  are  infrequent  in 
the  records  of  its  development.  Yet  withal  Torquemada's  zeal 
could  not  wholly  extinguish  worldliness.  We  are  told,  indeed, 
that  he  refused  the  archbishopric  of  Seville,  that  he  wore  the 
humble  Dominican  habit,  that  he  never  tasted  flesh  nor  wore 
linen  in  his  garments  or  used  it  on  his  bed,  and  that  he  refused 
to  give  a  marriage-portion  to  his  indigent  sister,  whom  he  would 
only  assist  to  enter  the  order  of  beatas  of  St.  Dominic.  Still,  his 
asceticism  did  not  prevent  him  from  living  in  palaces  surrounded 
by  a  princely  retinue  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  armed  familiars 
and  fifty  horesemen.^     Nor  was  his  persecuting  career  purely 


pp.  20-1;  Hefele,  Der  Cardinal  Ximenes,  p.  269;  Pastor,  Geschichte  der  Papste, 
II,  582),  basing  their  assertions  on  the  eagerness  of  the  curia  to  entertain  appeals, 
of  which  more  hereafter. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Legajo  unico,  fol.  28. 

'  Pdramo,  pp.  156-7. 


176  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

disinterested.  Though  the  rule  of  his  Dominican  Order  forbade 
individual  ownership  of  property  and,  though  his  position  as 
supreme  judge  should  have  dictated  the  utmost  reserve  in  regard 
to  the  financial  results  of  persecution,  he  had  no  hesitation  in 
accumulating  large  sums  from  the  pecuniary  penances  inflicted 
by  his  subordinates  on  the  heretics  who  spontaneously  returned 
to  the  faith/  It  is  true  that  the  standards  of  the  age  were  so 
low  that  he  made  no  secret  of  this  and  it  is  also  true  that  he 
lavished  them  on  the  splendid  monastery  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas 
which  he  built  at  Avila,  on  enlarging  that  of  Santa  Cruz  at 
Segovia  of  which  he  was  prior  and  on  various  structures  in 
his  native  town  of  Torquemada.  Yet  amid  the  ostentation  of 
his  expenditure  he  lived  in  perpetual  fear,  and  at  his  table  he 
always  used  the  horn  of  a  unicorn  which  was  a  sovereign  pre- 
servative against  poison.^ 

As  delegated  powers  were  held  to  expire  with  the  death  of  the 
grantor,  unless  otherwise  expressly  defined,  Torqueniada's  com- 
mission required  renewal  on  the  decease  of  Sixtus  IV,  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella  asked  that  the  new  one  should  not  be  limited  to 
the  life  of  the  pope,  but  that  the  power  should  continue,  not  only 
during  Torquemada's  life,  but  until  the  appointment  of  his 
successor.^  The  request  was  not  granted  and,  when  Innocent 
VIII,  by  a  brief  of  February  3,  1485,  recommissioned  Torque- 
mada it  was  in  the  orcUnary  form.  This  apparently  was  not 
satisfactory,  but  the  pope  was  not  willing  thus  to  lose  all  control 
of  the  Spanish  Inquisition  and  a  compromise  seems  to  have  been 
reached,  for  when,  February  6,  1486,  Torquemada  was  appointed 
Inquisitor-general  of  Barcelona  and  his  commission  for  Spain  was 
renewed,  on  March  24th  of  the  same  year,  it  was  drawn  to 
continue  at  the  good  pleasure  of  the  pope  and  of  the  Holy  See, 
which,  without  abnegating  papal  control,  rendered  renewals 
unnecessary.^  This  formula  was  abandoned  in  the  commissions 
of   Torquemada's   immediate  successors,  but  was  subsequently 


>  RipoU,  IV,  126.  *  Pdramo,  p.  156. 

'  Arch.  Gen.  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Reg.  3486,  fol.  45. — Pdramo,  p.  137. 

*  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I  de  copias,  fol.  6,  8. — "  ad  nostrum 
et  dictse  sedis  beneplacitum." 

The  original  appointments  of  Miguel  de  Morillo  and  Juan  de  San  Martin  were 
similarly  ad  beneplacitum  (Ibid.  fol.  10),  which  may  perhaps  explain  their  asser- 
tion of  independence  of  Torquemada. 


Chap.  IV]  INTERNAL  QUARRELS  I77 

resumed  and  continued  to  be  employed  through  the  following 
centuries/ 

Torquemada's  commission  of  1485  contained  the  important 
power  of  appointing  and  dismissing  inquisitors,  but  the  con- 
firmation of  1486  bore  the  significant  exception  that  all  those 
appointed  by  the  pope  were  exempted  from  removal  by  him, 
indicating  that  in  the  interval  he  had  attempted  to  exercise  the 
power  and  that  the  resistance  to  it  had  enlisted  papal  support* 
In  fact,  at  the  conference  of  Seville,  held  in  1484  by  Torquemada, 
there  were  present  the  two  inquisitors  of  each  of  four  existing 
tribunals;  from  Seville  we  find  Juan  de  San  Martin,  one  of  the 
original  appointees  of  1479,  but  his  colleague,  Miguel  de  Morillo, 
has  disappeared  and  is  replaced  by  Juan  Ruiz  de  Medina,  who 
had  been  merely  assessor,  while  but  a  single  one,  Pero  Martinez 
de  Barrio,  of  the  seven  commissioned  by  Sixtus  IV  in  1482 
appears  as  representing  the  other  tribunals — the  rest  are  all  new 
men,  doubtless  appointees  of  Torquemada.^  There  was  evidently 
a  bitter  quarrel  on  foot  between  Torquemada  and  the  original 
papal  nominees,  who  held  that  their  powers,  delegated  directly 
from  the  pope,  rendered  them  independent  of  him,  and,  as  usual, 
the  Holy  See  inclined  to  one  side  or  to  the  other  in  the  most 
exasperating  manner,  as  opposing  interests  brought  influence  to 
bear.  Complaints  against  Torquemada  were  sufficiently  numerous 
and  serious  to  oblige  him  thrice  to  send  Fray  Alonso  Valaja  to 
the  papal  court  to  justify  him.^  He  seems  to  have  removed 
Miguel  de  Morillo,  who  vindicated  himself  in  Rome,  for  a  brief 
of  Innocent  VIII,  February  23,  1487,  appoints  him  inquisitor 
of  Seville,  in  complete  disregard  of  the  faculties  granted  to 
Torquemada.  Then  a  motu  proprio  of  November  26,  1487, 
suspends  both  him  and  Juan  de  San  Martin  and  commissions 
Torquemada  to  appoint  their  successors.  Again,  a  brief  of 
January  7,  1488,  appoints  Juan  Inquisitor  of  Seville,  while 
subsequent  briefs  of  the  same  year  are  addressed  to  him  con- 
cerning the  business  of  his  office  as  though  he  were  discharging 
its  duties  independently  of  Torquemada,  but  his  death  in  1489 
removed  him  from  the  scene.    The  quarrel  evidently  continued, 

'  Ibid.  fol.  3,  11,  13,  15,  20;  Lib.  IV,  fol.  91,  118,  137;  Lib.  V,  fol.  117,  136, 
138,  151,  199,  200,  251,  264,  295.— Archive  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  1049. 

'  Instruciones  de  Sevilla  (ArgueUo,  Copilacion  de  las  Instruciones,  fol.  2, 
Madrid,  1630). 

^  Pdramo,  p.  156. 

12 


178  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

and  at  one  time  Fray  Miguel  enjoyed  a  momentary  triumph,  for 
a  papal  letter  of  September  26,  1491,  commissions  him  as 
Inquisitor-general  of  Castile  and  Aragon,  thus  placing  him  on 
an  equality  with  Torquemada  himself/  It  would  be  impossible 
now  to  determine  what  part  the  sovereigns  may  have  had  in 
these  changes  and  to  what  extent  the  popes  disregarded  the 
authority  conferred  on  them  of  appointment  and  removal. 
There  was  a  constant  struggle  on  the  one  hand  to  render  the 
Spanish  Holy  Office  national  and  independent,  and  on  the  other 
to  keep  it  subject  to  papal  control. 

Finally  the  opposition  to  Torquemada  became  so  strong  that 
Alexander  VI,  in  1494,  kindly  alleging  his  great  age  and  infirm- 
ities, commissioned  Martin  Ponce  de  Leon,  Archbishop  of  Messina, 
but  resident  in  Spain,  Inigo  Manrique,  Bishop  of  Cordova, 
Francisco  Sanchez  de  la  Fuente,  Bishop  of  Avila,  and  Alonso 
Suarez  de  Fuentelsaz,  Bishop  of  Mondonego  and  successively  of 
Lugo  and  Jaen,  as  inquisitors-general  with  the  same  powers  as 
Torquemada;  each  was  independent  and  could  act  by  himself 
and  could  even  terminate  cases  commenced  by  another.^  It  is 
quite  probable  that,  to  spare  his  feelings,  he  was  allowed  to  name 
his  colleagues  as  delegates  of  his  powers,  for  in  some  instructions 
issued,  in  1494,  by  Martin  of  Messina  and  Francisco  of  Avila  they 
describe  themselves  as  inquisitors-general  in  all  the  Spanish 
realms  subdelegated  by  the  Inquisitor-general  Torquemada.^  He 
evidently  still  retained  his  pre-eminence  and  was  active  to  the 

'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I  de  copias,  fol.  8,  10. — Monteiro,  His- 
toria  da  Inquisifao,  II,  415.— Boletin,  XV,  490.— Ripoll  IV,  5,  6. 

Somewhat  similar  was  the  question  which  arose,  in  1507,  on  the  retirement  of 
Diego  Deza  and  the  appointment  of  Ximenes  as  inquisitor-general  of  Castile. 
His  commission  as  usual  contained  the  power  of  appointing  and  removing  or  pun- 
ishing all  subordinates,  but  those  who  derived  their  commissions  from  Deza  seem 
to  have  claimed  that  they  were  not  amenable  to  Ximenes  and  it  required  a 
special  brief  from  Julius  II,  August  18,  1509,  to  establish  his  authority  over 
them. — Bulario,  Lib.  Ill,  fol.  68j  Lib.  I  de  copias,  fol.  30. 

'  Llorente,  Anales,  I,  214. — Francisco  de  la  Fuente,  as  we  have  seen  was 
inquisitor  of  Ciudad-Real  as  early  as  1483.  Alonso  de  Fuentelsaz  in  1487  was 
one  of  the  inquisitors  of  Toledo  and  was  then  merely  a  doctor. — Arch.  hist, 
nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  176,  n.  673. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  C33. — "  Inquisitores  generales  in 
omnibus  regnis  et  dominiis  serenissimorum  regis  et  reginse  dominorum  nostrorum 
subdelegati  a  reverendissimo  patre  nostro  fratre  Thoma  de  Torquemada  .  .  . 
inquisitore  generali." 

Yet  we  have  the  commission  of  Martin  of  Messina,  in  1494,  issued  directly  by 
the  pope. — Bulario,  Lib.  I  de  copias,  fol.  3. 


Chap.  IV]  FIVE  INQUISITOBS- GENERAL  179 

last,  for  we  have  letters  from  Ferdinand  to  him  in  the  first  half 
of  1498  concerning  the  current  affairs  of  the  Inquisition,  in  which 
the  Bishop  of  Lugo  declined  to  interfere  with  him.  The  Instruc- 
tions of  Avila,  in  1498,  were  issued  in  his  name  as  inquisitor- 
general,  and  the  assertion  that  he  resigned  two  years  before  his 
death,  September  16,  1498,  is  evidently  incorrect/  In  some 
respects,  however,  the  Bishop  of  Avila  had  special  functions 
which  distinguished  him  from  his  colleagues,  for  he  was  appointed 
by  Alexander  VI,  November  4,  1494,  judge  of  appeals  in  all 
matters  of  faith  and  March  30,  1495,  he  received  special  facul- 
ties to  degrade  ecclesiastics  condemned  by  the  Inquisition,  or  to 
appoint  other  bishops  for  that  function.^  So  long  as  they  were 
in  orders  clerics  were  exempt  from  secular  jurisdiction  and  it 
was  necessary  to  degrade  them  before  they  could  be  delivered 
to  the  civil  authorities  for  burning.  Under  the  canons,  this  had 
to  be  done  by  their  own  bishops,  who  were  not  always  at  hand 
for  the  purpose,  and  who  apparently,  when  present,  sometimes 
refused  or  delayed  to  perform  the  office,  which  was  a  serious 
impediment  to  the  business  of  the  Inquisition,  as  many  Judaizing 
Conversos  were  found  among  clerics. 

This  multiform  headship  of  the  Inquisition  continued  for  some 
years  until  the  various  incumbents  successively  died  or  resigned. 
Ifiigo  Manrique  was  the  first  to  disappear,  dying  in  1496, 
and  had  no  successor.  Then,  in  1498,  followed  the  Bishop  of 
Avila,  who  had  been  transferred  to  Cordova  in  1496.  In  the 
same  year,  as  we  have  seen,  Torquemada  died,  and  this  time 
the  vacancy  was  filled  by  the  appointment  as  his  successor  of 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  I. — Arguello,  fol.  12. — Marieta,  Hist. 
Ecles.  Lib.  xii,  cap.  xcii. 

Torquemada  was  buried  in  a  chapel  of  the  church  of  his  convent  of  Santo 
Tomds  in  Avila.  In  1572  the  body  was  removed  to  another  chapel  to  make 
room  for  the  interment  of  Francisco  de  Soto  de  Salazar,  Bishop  of  Salamanca, 
when  it  gave  forth  a  supernatural  odor  of  delicious  sweetness,  greatly  confusing 
to  those  engaged  in  the  sacrilegious  task.  The  Dominican  provincial  punished 
the  authors  of  the  translation  and  the  historian  Garibay  petitioned  the  Inquisitor- 
general  Quiroga  to  have  the  remains  restored  to  their  original  resting-place, 
which  was  done  in  1586. — Memorias  de  Garibay,  Tit.  x  (Mem.  hist.  esp.  VII, 
393). 

An  anonymous  biographer,  writing  in  1655,  tells  us  that  he  retired  to  the  con- 
vent of  Avila  two  years  before  his  death,  Sept.  26,  1498  and  that  he  has  always 
there  been  reputed  as  a  saint. — Biblioteca  Nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  li,  16. 

^  Arch,  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Legajo  linico,  fol.  22. — 
Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I,  fol.  136. 


180  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

Diego  Deza,  then  Bishop  of  Jaen  (subsequently,  in  1500,  of 
Palencia,  and  in  1505  Archbishop  of  Seville)  who  was  com- 
missioned, November  24,  1498,  for  Castile,  Leon  and  Granada, 
and  on  September  1,  1499,  for  all  the  Spanish  kingdoms.^  In 
1500  died  Martin  Archbishop  of  Messina — apparently  a  defaulter, 
for,  on  October  26th  of  the  same  year,  Fer(Unand  orders  his 
auditor  of  the  confiscations  to  pass  in  the  accounts  of  Luis  de 
Riva  Martin,  receiver  of  Cadiz,  18,000  maravedis  due  by  the 
archbishop  for  wheat,  hay,  etc.,  which  he  forgives  to  the  heirs.^ 
From  this  time  forward  Deza  is  reckoned  as  the  sole  inquisitor- 
general  and  direct  successor  of  Torquemada,  but  Fuentelsaz, 
Bishop  of  Jaen,  remained  in  office,  for,  as  late  as  January  13, 
1503,  an  order  for  the  payment  of  salaries  is  signed  by  Deza 
and  contains  the  name  of  the  Bishop  of  Jaen  as  also  inquisitor- 
general.^  He  relinquished  the  position  in  1504  and  Deza  remained 
as  sole  chief  of  the  Inquisition  until,  in  1507,  he  was  forced  to 
resign  as  we  shall  see  hereafter. 

At  the  time  of  his  retirement  the  kingdoms  of  Castile  and 
Aragon  had  been  separated  by  the  death  of  Isabella,  November 
26,  1504.  Ferdinand's  experience  with  his  son-in-law,  Philip  I, 
and  his  hope  of  issue  from  his  marriage  in  March,  1506,  with  Ger- 
maine  de  Foix,  in  which  case  the  kingdoms  would  have  remained 
separate,  warned  him  of  the  danger  of  having  his  ancestral 
dominions  spiritually  subordinated  to  a  Castilian  subject.  Before 
Deza's  resignation,  therefore,  he  applied  to  Julius  II  to  com- 
mission Juan  Enguera,  Bishop  of  Vich,  with  the  powers  for 
Aragon  which  Deza  was  exercising.  Julius  seems  to  have  made 
some  difficulty  about  this,  for  a  letter  of  Ferdinand,  from  Naples, 
February  6,  1507,  to  his  ambassador  at  Rome,  Francisco  de 
Rojas,  instructs  him  to  explain  that,  since  he  had  abandoned 
the  title  of  King  of  Castile,  the  juriscUction  was  separated  and  it 
was  necessary  and  convenient  that  there  should  be  an  Inquisition 
for  each  kingdom.*  He  prevailed  and  the  appointments  of 
Cardinal  Ximenes  for  Castile  and  of  Bishop  Enguera  for  Aragon 
were  issued  respectively  on  June  6  and  5,  1507.^  During  the 
lifetime  of  Ximenes  the  Inquisitions  remained  disunited,  but  in 


*  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I  de  copias,  fol.  11,  12. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  I. 
»  Ibid.  Lib.  I;  Lib.  II,  fol.  35. 

*  Correspondence  of  Francisco  de  Rojas  (Boletin,  XXVIII,  462). 
^  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I  de  copias,  fol.  13,  15. 


Chap.  IV]  IT  FRAMES  ITS  OWN  RULES  131 

1518,  after  his  death,  Charles  V  caused  his  former  tutor,  Cardinal 
Adrian  of  Utrecht,  Bishop  of  Tortosa,  who  in  1516  had  been 
made  Inquisitor-general  of  Aragon,  to  be  commissioned  also  for 
Castile,  after  which  there  was  no  further  division.  During  the 
interval  Ferdinand  had  acquired  Navarre  and  had  annexed  it 
to  the  crown  of  Castile,  so  that  the  whole  of  the  Peninsula,  with 
the  exception  of  Portugal,  was  united  under  one  organization/ 

Among  other  powers  granted  to  Torquemada  was  that  of  mod- 
ifying the  rules  of  the  Infiuisition  to  adapt  them  to  the  require- 
ments of  Spain.^*  The  importance  of  this  concession  it  would  be 
difficult  to  exaggerate,  as  it  rendered  the  institution  virtually  self- 
governing.  Thus  the  Spanish  Inquisition  acquired  a  character  of 
its  own,  distinguishing  it  from  the  moribund  tribunals  of  the 
period  in  other  lands.  The  men  who  fashioned  it  knew  perfectly 
what  they  wanted  and  in  their  hands  it  assumed  the  shape  in 
which  it  dominated  the  conscience  of  every  man  and  was  an  object 
of  terror  to  the  whole  population.  In  the  exercise  of  this  power 
Torquemada  assembled  the  inquisitors  in  Seville,  November  29, 

1484,  where,  in  conjunction  with  his  colleagues  of  the  Suprema, 
a  series  of  regulations  was  agreed  upon,  known  as  the  Insiruciones 
de  Sevilla,  to  which,  in  December  of  the  same  year  and  in  January, 

1485,  he  added  further  rules,  issued  in  his  own  name  under  the 
authority  of  the  sovereigns.  In  1488  another  assembly  was  held, 
under  the  supervision  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  which  issued 
the  Instruciones  de  Valladolid.^  In  1498  came  the  Instruciones 
de  Avila—i\ie  last  in  which  Torquemada  took  part— designed 
principally  to  check  the  abuses  which  were  rapidly  developing, 
and,  for  the  same  purpose,  a  brief  addition  was  made  at  Seville 
in  1500,  by  Diego  Deza.  All  these  became  known  in  the  tribunals 
as  the  Instruciones  Antiguas.*     As  the  institution  became  thor- 

^  Ibid.  fol.  20,  72. — Gachard,  Correspondance  de  Charles-Quint  et  d'Adrien 
VI,  p.  235. 

^  Pdramo,  p.  137. 

'  Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  iii,  cap.  c. — Archive  General  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion, 
Libro  933. 

^  Inquisitor-general  Manrique  caused  the  Instruciones  Antiguas  to  be  printed 
collectively,  with  a  supplement  classifying  the  several  articles  under  the  head  of 
the  officials  whose  duties  they  defined.  This  was  issued  in  Seville  in  1537  and  a 
copy  is  preserved  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  Seld.  A.  Subt.  15.  Another  edi- 
tion was  issued  in  Madrid  in  1576,  a  copy  of  which  is  in  the  Biblioteca  Nacional  of 
Madrid,  Seccion  de  MSS.  S,  299,  fol.  1.    It  was  reprinted  again  in  Madrid,  in  1627 


182  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

oughly  organized  under  the  control  of  the  Suprema,  consultation 
with  the  subordinate  inquisitors  was  no  longer  requisite  and 
regulations  were  promulgated  by  it  in  cartas  acordadas.  It  was 
difficult,  however,  to  keep  the  inquisitors  strictly  in  line,  and 
variations  of  practice  sprang  up  which,  in  1561,  the  Inquisitor- 
general  Fernando  Valdes  endeavored  to  check  by  issuing  the 
Instruciones  Nuevas.  Subsequent  regulations  were  required  from 
time  to  time,  forming  a  considerable  and  somewhat  intricate 
body  of  jurisprudence,  which  we  shall  have  to  consider  hereafter. 
At  present  it  is  sufficient  to  indicate  how  the  Inquisition  became 
an  autonomous  body — an  imperium  in  imperio — framing  its 
own  laws  and  subject  only  to  the  rarely-exercised  authority  of 
the  Holy  See  and  the  more  or  less  hesitating  control  of  the 
crown. 

At  the  same  time  all  the  resources  of  the  State  were  placed  at 
its  disposal.  When  an  inquisitor  came  to  assume  his  functions 
the  officials  took  ah  oath  to  assist  him,  to  exterminate  all  whom 
he  might  designate  as  heretics  and  to  observe  and  compel  the 
observance  by  all  of  the  decretals  Ad  abolendum,  Excommuni- 
camiis,  Ut  ofjicium  Inquisitionis  and  Ut  Inquisitionis  negotium — 
the  papal  legislation  of  the  thirteenth  century  which  made  the 
state  wholly  subservient  to  the  Holy  Office  and  rendered  incap- 
able of  official  position  any  one  suspect  in  the  faith  or  who 
favored  heretics.^    Besides  this,  all  the  population  was  assembled 


and  1630,  together  with  the  Instruciones  Nuevas,  by  Caspar  Isidro  de  Arguello. 
It  is  to  this  last  edition  that  my  references  will  be  made.  All  these  texts  vary  in 
some  particulars  from  the  originals  preserved  in  the  Simancas  Archives,  Inqui- 
sicion,  Libro  933.  Where  such  deviations  are  of  importance  they  will  be  noted 
hereafter.  Professor  Ernst  Schafer  has  performed  the  service  of  reprinting  the 
Arguello  edition,  with  a  German  translation,  in  the  Archiv  fur  Reformations- 
geschichte,   1904. 

Llorente  (Hist.  Crit.  cap.  vi,  art.  1)  has  given  an  abstract  of  the  Instruciones 
Antiguas.  Curiously  enough,  in  none  of  the  official  collections  are  included  the 
instructions  issued  bj^  Torquemada  in  December,  1484,  and  January,  1485, 
except  in  a  few  extracts.  As  they  have  never  been  printed  I  give  them  in  the 
Appendix,  together  with  the  1500  Instructions  of  Seville,  which  are  likewise  for 
the  most  part  inedited.  Wliat  Llorente  printed  as  Torquemada's  additions 
(Anales,  I,  388)  are  merely  the  extracts  gathered  from  Arguello's  compilation, 
where  they  are  credited  to  El  prior  en  Sevilla,  1485. 

*  See  the  oath  taken,  July  20,  1487,  by  the  officials  of  Catalonia  and  Barcelona 
to  the  inquisitor  Alonso  de  Spina  in  Carbonell's  De  Gestis  Hoereticorum  (Coleccion 
de  Documentos  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  XXVIII,  6). 

The  decretals  in  question  were  issued  by  Lucius  III,  Innocent  III,  Clement  IV 


Chap.  IV]  FLIGHT  OF  NEW  CHRISTIANS  183 

to  listen  to  a  sermon  by  the  inquisitor,  after  which  all  were 
required  to  swear  on  the  cross  and  the  gospels  to  help  the  Holy 
Office  and  not  to  impede  it  in  any  manner  or  on  any  pretext.^ 

It  is  no  wonder  that,  as  this  portentous  institution  spread  its 
wings  of  terror  over  the  land,  all  who  felt  themselves  liable  to 
its  animadversion  were  disposed  to  seek  safety  in  flight,  no 
matter  at  what  sacrifice.  That  numbers  succeeded  in  this  is 
shown  by  the  statistics  of  the  early  autos  de  fe,  in  which  the 
living  victims  are  far  outnumbered  by  the  effigies  of  the  absent. 
Thus  in  Ciudad-Real,  during  the  first  two  years,  fifty-two 
obstinate  heretics  were  burnt  and  two  hundred  and  twenty 
absentees  were  condemned.^  In  Barcelona,  where  the  Inquisition 
was  not  established  until  1487,  the  first  auto  de  fe,  celebrated 
January  25,  1488,  showed  a  list  of  four  living  victims  to  twelve 
effigies  of  fugitives;  in  a  subsequent  one  of  May  23d,  the  pro- 
portions were  three  to  forty-two;  in  one  of  February  9,  1489, 
three  to  thirty-nine;  in  one  of  March  24,  1490,  they  were  two  to 
one  hundred  and  fifty-nine,  and  in  another  of  June  10,  1491, 
they  were  three  to  one  hundred  and  thirty-nine.^  If  the  object 
had  simply  been  to  purify  the  land  of  heresy  and  apostasy  this 
would  have  been  accomplished  as  well  by  expatriation  as  by 
burning  or  reconciling,  but  such  was  not  the  policy  which  gov- 
erned the  sovereigns,  and  edicts  were  issued  forbidcUng  all  of 
Jewish  lineage  from  leaving  Spain  and  imposing  a  fine  of  five 
hundred  florins  on  ship-masters  conveying  them  away.*  This  was 
not,  as  it  might  seem  to  us,  wanton  cruelty,  although  it  was  harsh, 
inasmuch  as  it  assumed  guilt  on  mere  suspicion.  To  say  nothing 
of  the  confiscations,  which  were  defrauded  of  the  portable  property 
carried  away  by  the  fugitives,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that,  to 
the  orthodox  of  the  period,  heresy  was  a  positive  crime,  nay  the 


and  Boniface  VIII,  and  are  embodied  in  the  canon  law  as  Cap.  9  and  13  Extra, 
Lib.  V,  Tit.  vii  and  Cap.  11  and  18  in  Sexto  Lib.  v,  Tit.  ii. 

When,  in  1510,  the  jurats  of  Palermo  made  difficulties  in  taking  the  canonical 
oath,  Ferdinand  indignantly  wrote  that  he  would  take  it  himself  if  required. 
— Arch,  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  Ill,  fol.  134. 

^  Instruciones  de  Sevilla,  I  1  (ArgueUo,  fol.  3).  ^  Paramo,  p.  170. 

'  Carbonell  de  Gestis  Hsereticorum  (Coleccion  de  Documentos  de  la  Corona  de 
Aragon,  XXVIII,  12-17,  29,  40-49,  54-61).  In  these  latter  cases  there  is  no 
distinction  recorded  between  the  fugitive  and  the  dead,  which  would  modify 
somewhat  the  proportions. 

*  Manuel  de  Novells  Ardits,  \ailgarment  appelat  Dietari  del  Antich  Consell 
Barceloni,  III,  58  (Barcelona,  1894). 


184  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQ  UISITION  [Book  I 

greatest  of  crimes,  punishable  as  such  by  laws  in  force  for  cen- 
turies, and  the  heretic  was  to  be  prevented  from  escaping  its 
penalties  as  much  as  a  murderer  or  a  thief.  The  royal  edicts 
were  supplemented  by  the  Inquisition,  and  it  is  an  illustration 
of  the  extension  of  its  jurisdiction  over  all  matters,  relating 
directly  or  indirectly  to  the  faith,  that,  November  8,  1499,  the 
Archbishop  Martin  of  Messina  issued  an  order,  which  was  pub- 
lished throughout  the  realm  and  was  confirmed  by  Diego  Deza, 
January  15,  1502,  to  the  effect  that  no  ship-captain  or  merchant 
should  transport  across  seas  any  New  Christian,  whether  Jewish 
or  Moorish,  without  a  royal  license,  under  pain  of  confiscation, 
of  exconmiunication  and  of  being  held  as  a  fautor  and  protector 
of  heretics.  To  render  this  effective  two  days  later  Archbishop 
Martin  ordered  that  suitable  persons  should  be  sent  to  all  the 
sea-ports  to  arrest  all  New  Christians  desiring  to  cross  the  sea 
and  bring  them  to  the  Inquisition  so  that  justice  should  be  done 
to  them,  all  expenses  being  defrayed  out  of  the  confiscations.* 
These  provisions  were  not  allowed  to  be  a  dead-letter,  though 
we  are  apt  to  hear  of  them  rather  in  cases  where,  for  special 
reasons,  the  penalties  were  remitted.  Thus,  July  24,  1499, 
Ferdinand  writes  to  the  Inquisitors  of  Barcelona  that  a  ship  of 
Charles  de  Sant  Climent,  a  merchant  of  their  city,  had  brought 
from  Alexandria  to  Aiguesmortes  certain  persons  who  had  fled 
from  Spain.  Even  this  transportation  between  foreign  ports 
came  within  the  purview  of  the  law,  for  Ferdinand  explains  that 
action  in  this  case  would  be  to  his  disservice,  wherefore  if 
complaint  is  lodged  with  them  they  are  to  refer  it  to  him  or  to 
the  inquisitor-general  for  instructions.  Again,  on  November  8, 
1500,  the  king  orders  the  release  of  the  caravel  and  other  property 
of  Diego  de  la  Mesquita  of  Seville,  which  had  been  seized  because 
he  had  carried  some  New  Christians  to  Naples — the  reason  for 
the  release  being  the  seirvices  of  Diego  in  the  war  wtih  Naples 
and  those  which  he  is  rendering  elsewhere.  A  letter  from 
Ferdinand  to  the  King  of  Portugal,  November  7,  1500,  recites 
that  recently  some  New  Christians  had  been  arrested  in  Malaga, 
where  they  were  embarking  under  pretext  of  going  to  Rome  for 
the  jubilee.  On  examination  by  the  Inquisition  at  Seville  they 
admitted  that  they  were  Jews  but  said  that  they  had  been  forced 
in  Portugal   to  turn   Christians;   as  this   brought  them  under 


*  Arehivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  933. 


Chap.  IV]  GENERAL  SUBIIISSION  185 

inquisitorial  jurisdiction,  the  inquisitors  were  sending  to  Portugal 
for  evidence  and  the  king  was  asked  to  protect  the  envoys  and 
give  them  facilities  for  the  purpose/  The  same  determination 
was  manifested  to  recapture  when  possible  those  who  had  suc- 
ceeded in  effecting  their  flight.  In  1496  Micer  Martin,  inquisitor 
of  Mallorca,  heard  of  some  who  were  in  Bugia,  a  sea-port  of 
Africa.  He  forthwith  despatched  the  notary.  Lope  de  Vergara, 
thither  to  seize  them,  but  the  misbelieving  Moors  disregarded 
his  safe-conduct  and  threw  him  and  his  party  into  a  dungeon 
where  they  languished  for  three  years.  He  at  length  was  ran- 
somed and,  in  recompense  of  his  losses  and  sufferings,  Ferdinand 
ordered,  March  31,  1499,  Matheo  de  Morrano  receiver  of  Mallorca 
to  pay  him  two  hundred  and  fifty  gold  ducats  without  requiring 
of  him  any  itemized  statement  of  his  injuries.^ 

It  shows  how  strong  an  impression  had  already  been  made  by 
the  resolute  character  of  the  sovereigns,  and  how  violent  was  the 
antagonism  generally  entertained  for  the  Conversos,  that  so  novel 
and  absolute  a  tyranny  could  be  imposed  on  the  lately  turbulent 
population  of  Castile  without  resistance,  and  that  so  powerful 
a  class  as  that  against  which  persecution  was  directed  should 
have  submitted  without  an  effort  save  the  abortive  plots  at 
Seville  and  Toledo,  The  indications  that  have  reached  us  of 
opposition  to  the  arbitrary  acts  of  the  Inquisition  in  making 
arrests  or  confiscations  are  singularly  few.  In  the  records  of 
the  town-council  of  Xeres  de  la  Frontera,  under  date  of  August 
28,  1482,  there  is  an  entry  reciting  that  there  had  come  to  the 
town  a  man  carrying  a  wand  and  calling  himself  an  alguazil  of 
the  Inquisition;  he  had  seized  Gongalo  Cagabe  and  carried  him 
off  without  showing  his  authority  to  the  local  officials,  which  was 
characterized  as  an  atrocious  proceeding  and  the  town  ought  to 


^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  1.  By  a  letter  of  February  22, 1501, 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  congratulate  the  inquisitors  on  their  action  in  such  cases; 
if  other  New  Christians  assert  that  they  had  been  converted  by  force  justice  is  to 
be  executed  on  them. 

In  1511  a  ship  belonging  to  Caspar  de  la  Cavallerfa  of  Naples  was  seized  in 
Barcelona.  The  master,  Francisco  de  Santa  Cruz,  hurried  to  the  court  at 
Seville,  where  the  inquisitor-general  Enguera  condemned  the  vessel  and  he  gave 
securitj'  in  its  full  value.  Meanwhile  the  receiver  of  confiscations  at  Barcelona 
sold  it  without  waiting  for  its  condemnation,  whereupon  Ferdinand  ordered 
the  money  returned  and  the  vessel  taken  back. — Ibidem,  Lib.  Ill,  fol.  139. 

*  Ibidem,  Lib.  I. 


186  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

take  steps  with  the  king,  the  pope  and  the  Inquisition  to  have 
it  undone/-  Doubtless  the  summary  acts  of  the  Holy  Office, 
over-riding  all  recognized  law,  created  such  f  eehng  in  many  places, 
as  we  may  gather  from  a  cedula  of  Ferdinand,  December  15, 
1484,  forbidding  the  reception  of  heretics  and  ordering  their 
surrender  on  demand  of  the  inquisitors,  and  another  of  July  8, 
1487,  commanding  that  any  one  bearing  orders  from  the  inquis- 
itors of  Toledo  is  to  be  allowed  to  arrest  any  person,  under  a 
penalty  of  100,000  maravedis  for  the  rich  and  confiscation  for 
others,^  but  complaints  were  dangerous,  for  they  could  be  met 
by  threats  of  punishment  for  fautorship  of  heresy.  Still  it 
required  considerable  time  to  accustom  the  nobles  and  people 
to  unquestioning  submission  to  a  domination  so  absolute  and  so 
foreign  to  their  experience.  As  late  as  the  year  1500  there  are 
two  royal  letters  to  the  Count  of  Benalcazar  reciting  that  he  had 
ordered  the  arrest  of  a  girl  of  Herrera  who  had  uttered  scandals 
against  the  faith;  she  was  in  the  hands  of  his  alcaide,  Gutierre 
de  Sotomayor,  who  refused  to  deliver  her  when  the  inquisitor 
sent  for  her.  The  second  letter,  after  an  interval  of  nineteen 
days,  points  out  the  gravity  of  the  offence  and  peremptorily 
orders  the  surrender  of  the  girl.  She  proved  to  be  a  Jewish 
prophetess  whose  trial  resulted  in  bringing  to  the  stake  large 
numbers  of  her  unfortunate  disciples.  There  is  also  an  anticipa- 
tion of  resistance  in  a  letter,  Janary  12,  1501,  to  the  Prior  of 
St.  John,  charging  him  to  see  that  no  impediments  are  placed 
in  the  way  of  the  receiver  of  the  Inquisition  of  Jaen  in  seizing 
certain  confiscated  property  at  Alcazar  de  Consuegra.^  More 
indicative  of  popular  repugnance  is  a  letter  of  October  4,  1502, 
to  the  royal  officials  of  a  place  not  specified,  reciting  that  the 
people  are  endeavoring  to  have  Mosen  Salvador  Serras,  lieutenant 
of  the  vicar,  removed  because  he  had  spoken  well  of  the  Inqui- 
sition and  had  been  charged  by  the  inquisitors  with  certain 
duties  to  perform;  they  are  not  to  allow  this  to  be  done  and  are 
to  see  that  he  is  not  ill-treated.^  In  1509  Ferdinand  had  occasion 
to  remonstrate  with  the  Duke  of  Alva,  in  the  case  of  Alonso  de 
Jaen,  a  resident  of  Coria,  because,  when  he  was  arrested,  an  agent 
of  the  duke  had  seized  certain  cows  and  sold  them  and,  when  he 
was  condemned  and  his  property  confiscated,  Alva  had  forbidden 

*  Boletin,  XV,  323. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  939,  fol.  62,  146. 

»  Ibidem,  Libro  I.  *  Ibidem,  Lib.  II,  fol.  17. 


Chap.  IV]  BEPRESSION  OF  ABUSES  187 

any  one  to  purchase  anything  without  his  permission.  Ferdinand 
charges  him  to  allow  the  sale  to  proceed  freely  and  to  account 
for  the  cows,  pointing  out  that  he  had  granted  to  him  a  third 
of  the  net  proceeds  of  all  confiscations  in  his  estates/  This  grant 
of  a  third  of  the  confiscations  was  made  to  other  great  nobles 
and  doubtless  tended  to  reconcile  them  to  the  operations  of  the 
Inquisition.  In  this  general  acquiescence  it  is  somewhat  remark- 
able that,  as  late  as  1520,  when  Charles  V  ordered  Merida  to 
prepare  accommodations  for  a  tribunal,  the  city  remonstrated; 
everything  there  was  quiet  and  peaceable,  it  said,  and  it  feared 
a  tumult  if  the  Holy  Office  was  established  there,  while  if  merely 
a  visit  was  made  for  an  inquest  it  would  lend  wiUing  aid.  Cardinal 
Adrian  hearkened  to  the  warning  in  Charles's  absence  and  in  a 
letter  of  November  27,  1520,  ordered  his  inquisitors  to  settle 
somewhere  else.^ 

At  the  same  time  it  was  inevitable  that  power  so  irresponsible 
would  be  frequently  and  greatly  abused,  and  it  is  interesting 
to  observe  that,  when  no  resistance  was  made,  Ferdinand 
was,  as  a  general  rule,  prompt  to  intervene  in  favor  of  the 
oppressed.  Thus  January  28,  1498,  he  writes  to  the  inquisitors- 
general  that  recently  some  officials  of  the  Inquisition  of  Valencia 
went  to  the  barony  of  Serra  to  arrest  some  women  who  wore 
Moorish  dress  and,  as  they  were  not  recognized,  they  were  resisted 
by  the  Moors,  whereupon  the  inquisitors  proceeded  to  seize  all 
the  Moors  of  Serra  who  chanced  to  come  to  Valencia,  so  that 
the  place  was  becoming  depopulated.  He  therefore  orders  the 
inquisitors-general  to  intimate  to  their  subordinates  that  they 
must  find  some  other  method  whereby  the  innocent  shall  not 
suffer  for  the  fault  of  individuals  and,  not  content  with  this,  he 
wrote  directly  to  the  Inquisitor  of  \^ilencia,  instructing  him  to 
proceed  with  much  moderation.  In  anotlicr  case  where  opposition 
had  been  provoked  he  writes,  January  18,  1499,  "We  have  your 
letter  and  are  much  displeased  with  the  maltreatment  which 
you  report  of  the  inquisitor  and  his  officials.  It  will  be  attended 
to  duly.     But  often  you  yourselves  are  the  cause  of  it,  for  if 


^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  Ill,  fol.  42.  This  letter  is  dated 
Dec.  22,  1509.  It  is  duplicated  January  19,  1510  (Ibid.  fol.  48).  Seven  of  the 
Duke's  officials  had  been  summoned  to  appear  before  the  Suprema  and  had 
disregarded  the  order,  which  was  repeated  January  21st  under  pain  of  confiscation 
and  punishment  at  the  royal  pleasure. — Ibid.  fol.  57. 

*  Ibidem,  Libro  73,  fol."  115. 


188  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

each  of  you  would  attend  to  his  duties  quietly  and  carefully  and 
injure  no  one  you  would  be  held  in  good  esteem.  Look  to  this 
in  the  future,  for  it  will  displease  us  much  if  you  do  what  you 
ought  not,  with  little  foundation,"  At  the  same  time  he  charges 
the  inquisitor  not  to  make  arrests  without  good  cause,  "for  in 
such  things,  besides  the  charge  on  your  conscience,  the  Holy 
Office  is  much  defamed  and  its  officials  despised."  So  in  a  letter 
of  August  15,  1500,  to  the  inquisitors  of  Saragossa,  he  tells  them 
that  he  has  received  a  copy  of  an  edict  which  they  had  issued 
at  Calatayud;  it  is  so  sharp  that  if  it  is  enforced  no  one  can  be 
safe;  they  must  consider  such  things  carefully  or  consult  him; 
in  the  present  case  they  will  obey  the  instructions  sent  by  the 
inquisitors-general  and  must  always  bear  in  mind  that  the  only 
object  of  the  Inquisition  is  the  salvation  of  souls.  Again,  when 
the  inquisitors  of  Barcelona  imperiously  placed  the  town  of 
Perpiiian  under  interdict,  in  a  quarrel  arising  out  of  a  censal  or 
ground-rent  on  Carcella,  Ferdinand  writes  to  them,  March  5, 
1501,  that  the  town  is  poor  and  must  be  gently  treated,  especially 
as  it  is  on  the  frontier,  and  he  sends  a  special  envoy  to  arrange 
the  matter.^  The  wearing  delays,  which  were  one  of  the  most 
terrible  engines  of  oppression  by  the  Inquisition,  were  especially 
distasteful  to  him.  January  28,  1498,  he  writes  to  an  inquisitor 
about  the  case  of  Anton  Ruiz  of  Teruel,  who  had  been  imprisoned 
for  five  months  without  trial  for  some  remarks  made  by  him  to 
another  person  about  the  confiscation  of  the  property  of  Jaime 
de  Santangel,  though  appHcation  had  been  made  repeatedly  to 
have  the  case  despatched.  Ferdinand  orders  that  it  be  con- 
sidered at  once;  the  prisoner  is  either  to  be  discharged  on  bail 
or  proper  punishment  is  to  be  inflicted.  So,  January  16,  1501, 
he  reminds  inquisitors  that  he  has  written  to  them  several  times 
to  conclude  the  case  between  the  heirs  of  Mossen  Perea  and  the,, 
sons  of  Anton  Ruiz  and  deliver  sentence;  the  case  has  been 
concluded  for  some  time  but  the  sentence  is  withheld;  it  must 
be  rendered  at  once  or  the  case  must  be  either  delegated  to  a 
competent  person  or  be  sent  to  the  Suprema.  At  the  same  time, 
whenever  there  was  the  semblance  of  opposition  to  an  injustice, 
on  the  part  of  the  secular  authorities,  he  was  prompt  to  repress 
it.  The  action  of  the  Inquisition  of  Valencia,  in  confiscating  the 
property  of  a  certain  Valenzuola,  excited  so  much  feeUng  that 


^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Iiiquisicion,  Libre  I. 


Chap.  IV]  FERDINAND'S  BIGOTRY  I39 

the  governor,  the  auditor-general,  the  royal  council  and  the 
jurados  met  to  protest  against  it  and  in  so  doing  said  some  things 
unpleasing  to  the  inquisitors,  who  thereupon  complained  to 
Ferdinand.  He  wrote  to  the  offenders,  March  21,  1499,  rebuking 
them  severely;  it  was  none  of  their  business;  if  the  inquisitors 
committed  an  injustice  the  appeal  lay  to  the  inquisitor-general, 
who  would  rectify  it;  their  duty  was  to  aid  the  Inquisition  and 
he  ordered  them  to  do  so  in  future  and  not  to  create  scandal/ 
He  was  more  considerate  when  the  frontier  town  of  Perpinan 
was  concerned,  for  in  1513,  when  the  deputy  receiver  of  confisca- 
tions provoked  antagonism  by  the  vigor  of  his  proceedings  and 
the  consuls  complained  that  he  had  publicly  insulted  Franco 
Maler,  one  of  their  number,  Ferdinand  ordered  the  inquisitor  of 
Barcelona  to  investigate  the  matter  at  once  and  to  inflict  due 
punishment.^ 

His  whole  correspondence  shows  the  untiring  interest  which 
he  felt  in  the  institution,  not  merely  as  a  financial  or  poUtical 
instrument,  but  as  a  means  of  defending  and  advancing  the 
faith.  He  was  sincerely  bigoted  and,  when  he  had  witnessed  an 
auto  de  fe  in  Yalladohd,  he  wrote,  September  30,  1509,  to  the 
inquisitor  Juan  Alonso  de  Navia  to  express  the  great  pleasure 
which  it  had  given  him  as  a  means  of  advancing  the  honor  and 
glory  of  God  and  the  exaltation  of  the  Holy  Catholic  faith.^ 
Inquisitors  were  in  the  habit  of  sending  him  reports  of  the  autos 
celebrated  by  them,  to  which  he  would  reply  in  terms  of  high 
satisfaction,  urging  them  to  increased  zeal.  On  one  occasion, 
in  1512,  and  on  another  in  1513,  he  was  so  much  pleased  that  he 
made  a  present  to  the  inquisitor  of  two  hundred  ducats  and 
ordered  fifteen  ducats  to  be  given  to  the  messenge^/ 

A  quarter  of  a  century  elapsed  before  there  was,  in  the  CastiHan 
kingdoms,  any  serious  resistance  to  the  Inquisition.  The  trouble 
which  then  occurred  was  provoked  by  the  excesses  of  an  inquisitor 
named  Lucero  at  Cordova,  which  were  brought  to  light  only  by 
the  relaxation  of  Ferdinand's  stern  rule  during  the  brief  reign 
of  Philip  of  Austria  and  the  subsequent  interregnum.  As  this 
affords  us  the  only  opportunity  of  obtaining  an  inside  view  of 
what  was  possible,  under  the  usually  impenetrable  mantle  of 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  I.       '  Ibidem,  Lib.  Ill,  fol.  221. 

s  Ibidem,  Lib.  Ill,  fol.  22.  ■*  Ibidem,  Lib.  Ill,  fol.  193,  214. 


190  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

secrecy  characteristic  of  inquisitorial  procedure,  it  is  worthy  of 
investigation  in  some  detail. 

Cordova  was  somewhat  unfortunate  in  its  inquisitors;  whether 
more  or  less  so  than  other  communities  it  would  now  be  impossible 
to  say.  Lucero's  predecessor  was  Doctor  Guiral,  Dean  of  Guadix, 
who  was  transferred  from  there  to  Avila,  in  1499.  Falling  under 
suspicion  for  irregularities,  a  papal  brief  was  procured  com- 
missioning the  Archbishop  of  Toledo  to  investigate  him — and  it 
is  noteworthy  that,  although  the  inquisitor-general  had  full 
power  of  appointment,  punishment  and  dismissal,  papal  inter- 
vention was  deemed  necessary  in  this  case.  The  result  showed 
the  ample  opportunities  offered  by  the  position  for  irregular 
gains  and  for  oppression  and  injustice.  He  had  received  150,000 
maravedis  by  selling  to  penitents  exemptions  from  wearing  the 
sanbenito,  or  penitential  garment.  A  large  amount  was  secured 
in  various  ways  from  the  receiver  of  confiscations,  who  was 
evidently  an  accomplice  and  who,  of  course,  received  his  share 
of  the  spoils.  Pilfering  from  sequestrated  property  yielded 
something,  including  ninety-three  pearls  of  great  value.  Through 
his  servants  he  gathered  rewards  or  percentages  offered,  as  we 
shall  see,  for  discovering  concealed  confiscated  property.  He 
pocketed  the  fines  which  he  imposed  on  reconciled  penitents 
and  was  therefore  interested  in  aggravating  them.  He  negotiated 
for  the  Conversos  of  Cordova  an  agreement  under  which  they 
compounded  with  2,200,000  maravedis  for  confiscations  to  which 
they  might  become  Hable,  and  for  this  he  received  from  them 
nearly  100,000,  to  which  he  added  50,000  by  enabhng  two  of  the 
contributors  to  cheat  their  fellows  by  escaping  paj^ment  of  their 
assessments  to  the  common  fund.  When  transferred  to  Avila 
his  field  of  operations  was  less  productive,  but  he  made  what  he 
could  by  extorting  money  from  the  kindred  of  his  prisoners,  and 
he  did  not  cUsdain  to  take  ten  ducats  and  an  ass  from  an  official 
of  the  prison  for  some  offence  committed.  As  the  royal  fisc 
suffered  from  his  practices  he  was  arrested  and  tried,  but,  unfor- 
tunately, the  documents  at  hand  do  not  inform  us  as  to  the 
result.^ 

His  successor  at  Cordova,  Diego  Rodriguez  Lucero,  was  a 
criminal  of  larger  views  and  bolder  type,  who  presents  himself 
to  us  as  the  incarnation  of  the  evils  resultant  from  the  virtually 


^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Patronato  real;  Inquisicion,  Legajo  unico,  fol.  37. 


Chap.  IV]  EXCESSES  OF  LUCERO 


191 


irresponsible  powers  lodged  in  the  tribunals.  Our  first  glimpse 
of  him  is  in  1495,  when  he  figures  as  inquisitor  of  Xeres  and  the 
recipient  from  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  of  a  canonry  in  Cadiz/ 
This  shows  that  he  had  already  gained  the  favor  of  the  sovereigns, 
which  increased  after  his  promotion  to  Cordova,  September  7, 
1499,  where,  by  the  methods  which  we  shall  presently  see,  his 
discoveries  of  apostate  Judaizers  were  very  impressive.  A  royal 
letter  of  December  11,  1500,  cordially  thanked  him  for  the  ample 
details  of  a  recent  despatch  relating  how  he  was  every  day 
unearthing  new  heretics;  he  was  urged  to  spare  no  effort  for  their 
punishment,  especially  of  those  who  had  relapsed,  and  to  report 
at  once  everything  that  he  did.  His  zeal  scarce  required  this 
stimulation  and  his  lawless  methods  are  indicated  by  a  letter 
of  February  12,  1501,  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  to  their  son-in- 
law  Manoel  of  Portugal,  expatiating  on  the  numerous  heretics 
recently  discovered  in  Cordova,  of  whom  two  heresiarchs, 
Alfonso  Fernandez  Herrero  and  Fernando  de  Cordova  had 
escaped  to  Portugal,  whither  Lucero  had  despatched  his  alguazil 
to  bring  them  back  without  waiting  to  obtain  royal  letters. 
This  was  an  unwarrantable  act  and,  when  the  alguazil  seized  the 
fugitives,  Manoel  refused  license  to  extradite  them  until  he  should 
have  an  opportunity  of  seeing  the  evidence  against  them.  Ferdi- 
nand and  Isabella  declare  that  this  would  be  a  grievous  impedi- 
ment to  the  Holy  Office  and  disservice  to  God  and  they  affection- 
ately entreat  Manoel  to  surrender  the  accused  for  the  honor  of 
God  and  also  to  protect  from  maltreatment  the  officials  who 
had  aided  in  their  capture.^ 

We  may  not  uncharitably  assume  that  a  portion,  at  least,  of 
the  favor  shown  to  Lucero  may  have  been  due  to  the  pecuniary 
results  of  his  activity.  By  this  time  the  confiscations,  which 
at  first  had  contributed  largely  to  the  royal  treasury,  were  con- 
siderably diminished  and  at  some  places  were  scarce  defraying 
the  expenses  of  the  tribunals.  To  this  Cordova  was  now  an 
exception;  that  its  productiveness  was  rapidly  growing  is 
manifest  from  a  letter  of  Ferdinand,  March  12,  1501,  to  the 
receiver,  Andres  de  Medina,  stating  that  he  learns  that  there  is 
much  to  be  done  and  authorizing  the  appointment  of  two  assist- 
ants at  salaries  of  10,000  maravedis  and,  on  January  12  and  13, 


'  Informe  de  Quesada  (Biblioteca  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  T,  28). 
'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  I. 


192  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

1503,  orders  were  drawn  on  Cordova  for  500,000  maravedis  to 
defray  inquisitorial  salaries  elsewhere.  On  the  same  date  we 
have  another  illustration  of  Lucero's  activity  in  the  sudden  arrest 
of  four  of  the  official  public  scriveners.  As  they  were  the  deposi- 
taries of  the  papers  of  their  clients,  the  sequestration  of  all  their 
effects  produced  enormous  complications,  to  relieve  which  Ferdi- 
nand ordered  all  private  documents  to  be  sorted  out  and  put  in 
the  hands  of  another  scrivener,  Luis  de  Mesa.  This  shows  how 
the  operations  of  the  Inquisition  might  at  any  moment  affect 
the  interests  of  any  man  and  it  illustrates  another  of  the  profits 
of  persecution  for,  when  these  deUnquents  should  be  burnt  or 
disabled  from  holding  public  office,  there  would  be  four  vacancies 
to  be  eagerly  contended  for  by  those  who  had  money  or  favor 
for  their  acquisition.^ 

As  early  as  1501  there  is  evidence  of  hostility  between  Lucero 
and  the  Cordovan  authorities.  When  the  receiver  of  confiscations, 
accompanied  by  Diego  de  Barrionuevo,  scrivener  of  sequestra- 
tions, was  holding  a  pubfic  auction  of  confiscated  property, 
the  alguazil  mayor  of  the  city,  Gonzalo  de  Mayorga,  ordered 
the  town-crier,  Juan  Sanchez,  who  was  crying  the  auction,  to 
come  with  him  in  order  to  make  certain  proclamations.  The 
scrivener  interposed  and  refused  to  let  Sanchez  go;  hot  words 
passed  in  which  Mayorga  insulted  the  Inquisition  and  finally 
struck  the  scrivener  with  his  wand  of  office,  after  which  the 
alcalde  mayor  of  the  city,  Diego  Ruiz  de  Zarate,  carried  him  off 
to  prison.  The  inviolability  of  the  officials  of  the  Inquisition 
was  vindicated  by  a  royal  sentence  of  September  6th,  in  which 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libre  I. 

The  redistribution  of  offices  may  be  reckoned  among  the  influences  which 
reconciled  the  Old  Christians  to  the  Inquisition.  These  had  been  largely  in  the 
hands  of  Conversos,  causing  so  much  jealousy  that  the  prospect  of  acquiring 
them  led  numbers  of  aspirants  to  wish  for  the  sharpest  and  speediest  action.  It 
was  too  slow  for  their  eagerness  and  expectative  grants  were  sought  for  and 
made  in  advance  so  as  to  profit  by  the  next  victim.  The  vacancies  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  receivers  and  were  distributed  by  the  sovereigns  as  favor  or 
policy  might  dictate.  See  Appendix  for  suggestive  extracts  from  the  register 
of  the  receiver  of  Valencia. 

A  significant  case  is  that  of  Juan  Cardona,  public  scrivener  and  notary  of 
mortmains,  who  became  disqualified  by  the  condemnation  of  the  memory  of  his 
father,  Leonardo  Cardona,  whereupon  Ferdinand  treated  his  offices  as  confiscated 
and,  by  cedula  of  December  5,  1511,  bestowed  them  on  Juan  Argent,  notary  of 
the  tribunal  which  had  rendered  the  sentence. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion, 
Libro  III,  fol.  33,  161. 


Chap.  IV]  SECRETARY  CALCENA  I93 

Mayorga,  in  addition  to  the  arbitrary  penance  to  be  imposed 
on  him  by  Lucero,  was  deprived  of  his  office  for  Hfe,  was  disabled 
from  filling  any  public  position  whatever,  and  was  banished 
perpetually  from  Cordova  and  its  district,  which  he  was  to  leave 
within  eight  days  after  notification.  Zarate  was  more  mercifully 
treated  and  escaped  with  six  months'  suspension  from  office.^ 
This  severity  to  civic  officials  of  high  position  was  a  warning  to 
all  men  that  Lucero  was  not  to  be  trifled  with. 

The  unwavering  support  that  he  received  from  Ferdinand  is 
largely  explicable  by  the  complicity  of  Juan  Roiz  de  Calcena, 
a  corrupt  and  mercenary  official  whom  we  shall  frequently  meet 
hereafter.  He  was  Ferdinand's  secretary  in  inquisitorial  affairs, 
conducting  all  his  correspondence  in  such  matters,  and  was  also 
secretary  to  the  Suprema,  and  thus  was  able  in  great  degree  to 
control  his  master's  action,  rendering  his  participation  in  the 
villainies  on  foot  essential  to  their  success.  How  these  were 
worked  is  displayed  in  a  single  case  which  happens  to  be  described 
in  a  memorial  from  the  city  of  Cordova  to  Queen  Juana.  The 
Archdeacon  of  Castro,  Juan  Muiioz,  was  a  youth  of  seventeen, 
the  son  of  an  Old  Christian  mother  and  a  Converso  hidalgo.  His 
benefice  was  worth  300,000  maravedis  a  year  and  he  was  a  fair 
subject  of  spoliation,  for  which  a  plot  was  organized  in  1505. 
His  parents  were  involved  in  his  ruin,  all  three  were  arrested 
and  convicted  and  he  was  penanced  so  as  to  disable  him  from 
holding  preferment.  The  spoils  were  divided  between  Cardinal 
Bernardino  Carvajal,  for  whom  bulls  had  been  procured  in 
advance.  Morales  the  royal  treasurer,  Tucero  and  Calcena.  The 
governor  and  chapter  of  Cordova  gave  the  archdeaconry  to 
Diego  Velio,  chaplain  of  the  bishop,  but  the  Holy  See  con- 
veniently refused  confirmation  and  bestowed  it  on  Morales; 
Lucero  obtained  a  canonry  in  Seville  and  some  benefices  in 
Cuenca,  while  Calcena  received  property  estimated  at  4,000,000 
maravedis — doubtless  an  exaggerated  figure  representing  the 
aggregate  of  his  gains  from  complicity  throughout  Lucero 's 
career.^ 

'  Arohivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  I. 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  46. — Juan 
Gomez  Bravo,  Catalogo  de  los  Obispos  de  Cordova,  I,  392. 

In  1513  an  attempt  was  made  to  review  the  trial  of  the  parents  and  son,  when 
Ferdinand  summoned  the  Royal  Council  to  sit  with  the  Suprema  in  the  case  show- 
ing his  determination  that  the  sentence  should  not  be  set  aside  (Archivo  de 

13 


194  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

It  was  probably  in  1501  that  the  combination  was  formed 
which  emboldened  Lucero  to  extend  his  operations,  arresting 
and  condemning  nobles  and  gentlemen  and  church  dignitaries, 
many  of  them  Old  Christians  of  unblemished  reputation  and 
lim'pios  de  sangre.  It  was  easy,  by  abuse  and  threats,  or  by 
torture  if  necessary,  to  procure  from  the  accused  whatever 
evidence  was  necessary  to  convict,  not  only  themselves  but 
whomsoever  it  was  desired  to  ruin.  A  great  fear  fell  upon  the 
whole  population,  for  no  one  could  tell  where  the  next  blow 
might  fall,  as  the  circle  of  denunciation  spread  through  all  ranks. 
Apologists  from  that  time  to  this  have  endeavored  to  extenuate 
these  proceedings  by  suggesting  that  those  compromised  endeav- 
ored to  secure  allies  by  inculpating  in  their  confessions  men  of 
rank  and  influence,  but  in  view  of  Lucero 's  methods  and  the 
extent  of  his  operations  such  an  explanation  is  wholly  inadequate 
to  overthrow  the  damning  mass  of  evidence  against  him/ 

His  views  expanded  beyond  the  narrow  bounds  of  Cordova, 
and  he  horrified  the  land  by  gathering  evidence  of  a  vast  con- 
spiracy, ramifying  throughout  vSpain,  for  the  purpose  of  sub- 
verting Christianity  and  replacing  it  with  Judaism,  which  required 
for  its  suppression  the  most  comprehensive  and  pitiless  measures. 
In  memorials  to  Queen  Juana  the  authorities,  ecclesiastic  and 
secular,  of  Cordova  described  how  he  had  certain  of  his  prisoners 
assiduously  instructed  in  Jewish  prayers  and  rites  so  that  they 
could  be  accurate  in  the  testimony  which,  by  menaces  or  torture, 
he  forced  them  to  bear  against  Old  Christians  of  undoubted 
orthodoxy.  In  this  way  he  proved  that  there  were  twenty-five 
profetissas  who  were  engaged  in  traversing  the  land  to  convert 
it  to  Judaism,  although  many  of  those  designated  had  never  in 
their  lives  been  outside  of  the  city  gates.  Accompanying  them 
were  fifty  distinguished  personages,  including  ecclesiastics  and 
preachers  of  note.^  Of  course,  these  stories  lost  nothing  in 
passing  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  it  was  popularly  said  that 
some  of  these  prophetesses,  in  their  unholy  errand,  travelled  a? 

Simancas,  Inq.,  Libro  9,  fol.  146).  The  effort  to  obtain  justice  was  unsuccessful 
for,  in  1515,  we  happen  to  find  Calcena  in  possession  of  a  house  renting  at  9000 
mrs.  per  annum  which  had  formed  part  of  the  confiscation  (Ibid.,  Libro  3,  fol. 
439). 

»  Epistt.  Pet.  Mart.  Anglerii,  Epist.  374.— Zurita,  Hist,  del  Rey  Hernando, 
Lib.  VII,  cap.  xxix.— Rodrigo,  Hist,  verdadera,  II,  238.  Cf.  Lorenzo  de  Padilla, 
Cronica  de  Felipe  I  (Coleccion  de  Documentos,  VIII,  153). 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  unico,  fol.  46. 


Chap.  IV]  LUCEBO'S  REIGN  OF  TERROR  195 

drunken  Bacchantes  and  others  were  transported  on  goats  by 
the  powers  of  hell/  A  single  instance,  which  happens  to  have 
reached  us,  illustrates  the  savage  thoroughness  with  which  he 
protected  the  faith  from  this  assault.  A  certain  Bachiller  Mem- 
breque  was  convicted  as  an  apostate  Judaizer  who  had  dis- 
seminated his  doctrines  by  preaching.  Lists  were  gathered  from 
witnesses  of  those  who  had  attended  his  sermons  and  these,  to 
the  number  of  a  hundred  and  seven,  were  burnt  alive  in  a  single 
auto  de  fe.^  The  inquisitorial  prisons  were  filled  with  the  unfor- 
tunates under  accusation,  as  many  as  four  hundred  being  thus 
incarcerated,  and  large  numbers  were  carried  to  Toro  where,  at 
the  time,  Inquisitor-general  Deza  resided  with  the  Suprema. 

The  reign  of  terror  thus  established  was  by  no  means  confined 
to  Cordova.  Its  effects  are  energetically  described  by  the  Capitan 
Gonzalo  de  Avora,  in  a  letter  of  July  16,  1507,  to  the  royal 
secretary  Almazan.  After  premising  that  he  had  represented  to 
Ferdinand,  with  that  monarch's  assent,  that  there  were  three 
things  requisite  for  the  good  of  the  kingdom — to  conduct  the 
Inquisition  righteously  without  weakening  it,  to  wage  war  with 
the  Moors,  and  to  relieve  the  burdens  of  the  people — he  proceeds 
to  contrast  this  with  what  had  been  done.  "As  for  the  Inqui- 
sition," he  says,  "the  method  adopted  was  to  place  so  much 
confidence  in  the  Archbishop  of  Seville  (Deza)  and  in  Lucero  and 
Juan  de  la  Fuente  that  they  were  able  to  defame  the  whole 
kingdom,  to  destroy,  without  God  or  justice,  a  great  part  of  it, 
slaying  and  robbing  and  violating  maids  and  wives  to  the  great 
dishonor  of  the  Christian  religion.  ...  As  for  what  con- 
cerns myself  I  repeat  what  I  have  already  written  to  you, 
that  the  damages  which  the  wicked  officials  of  the  Inquisition 
have  wrought  in  my  land  are  so  many  and  so  great  that  no 
reasonable  person  on  hearing  of  them  would  not  grieve."^  When 
a  horde  of  rapacious  officials,  clothed  in  virtual  inviolabihty, 
was  let  loose  upon  a  defenceless  population,  such  violence  and 
rapine  were  inevitable  incidents,  and  the  motive  of  this  was 
explained,  by  the  Bishop  of  Cordova  and  all  the  authorities  of 
the  city,  in  a  petition  to  the  pope,  to  be  the  greed  of  the  inquisi- 
tors for  the  confiscations  which  they  habitually  embezzled.* 

»  Epistt.  Pet.  Mart.,  Epist.  385. 

*  Archivo  de  la  Catedral  de  Cordova,  Cajon  I,  n.  300;  Cajon  J  n.  295,  296. 
»  Boletin,  XVII,  447-51. 

*  Archivo  de  la  Catedral  de  Cordova,  Cajon  I,  n.  304. 


196  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

It  was  probably  in  1505,  after  the  death  of  Isabella,  November 
16,  1504,  that  the  people  of  Cordova  first  ventured  to  complain 
to  Deza.  He  offered  to  send  the  Archdeacon  Torquemada  who, 
with  representatives  of  the  chapter  and  the  magistrates,  should 
make  an  impartial  investigation,  but  when  the  city  accepted  the 
proposition  he  withdrew  it.  A  deputation  consisting  of  three 
church  dignitaries  was  then  sent  to  him  asking  for  the  arrest 
and  prosecution  of  Lucero.  He  replied  that  if  they  would  draw 
up  accusations  in  legal  form  he  would  act  as  would  best  tend  to 
God's  service,  and,  if  necessary,  would  appoint  judges  to  whom 
they  could  not  object/  This  was  a  manifest  evasion,  for  the 
evidence  was  under  the  seal  of  the  Inquisition  and  Deza  alone 
could  order  an  investigation.  Apparently  realizing  that  it  was 
useless  to  appeal  to  Ferdinand,  whose  ears  were  closed  by  Calcena, 
their  next  recourse  was  to  Isabella's  daughter  and  successor, 
Queen  Juana,  then  in  Flanders  with  her  husband  Philip  of 
Austria.  Philip  was  eager  to  exercise  an  act  of  sovereignty  in 
the  kingdom,  which  Ferdinand  was  governing  in  the  name  of  his 
daughter  and,  on  September  30,  1505,  a  cedula  bearing  the 
signatures  of  Philip  and  Juana  was  addressed  to  Deza,  alleging 
their  desire  to  be  present  and  participate  in  the  action  of  the 
Inquisition  and  meanwhile  suspending  it  until  their  approaching 
arrival  in  Castile,  under  penalty  of  banishment  and  seizure  of 
temporalities  for  disobedience,  at  the  same  time  protesting  that 
their  desire  was  to  favor  and  not  to  injure  the  Holy  Office. 
Although  a  circular  letter  to  all  the  grandees  announced  this 
resolution  and  commanded  them  to  enforce  it,  no  attention  was 
paid  to  it.  Don  Diego  de  Guevara,  Philip's  envoy,  in  fact  wrote 
to  him  the  following  June  that  his  action  had  produced  a  bad 
impression,  for  the  people  were  hostile  to  the  Conversos  and 
there  was  talk  of  massacres  like  that  of  Lisbon.^ 

The  next  step  of  the  opponents  of  Lucero  was  to  recuse  Deza 
as  judge  and  to  interject  an  appeal  to  the  Holy  See,  leading  to 
an  active  contest  in  Rome  between  Ferdinand  and  his  son-in-law. 
A  letter  of  the  former,  April  22,  1506,  to  Juan  de  Loaysa,  agent 
of  the  Inquisition  in  Rome,  described  the  attempt  as  an  audacious 
and  indecent  effort  to  destroy  the  Inquisition  which  was  more 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  unico,  fol.  46. — 
Zurita,  Hist,  del  Rey  Hernando,  Lib.  vii,  cap.  xxix. 

'  Coleccion  de  Documentos,  VIII,  336,  337. — Gachard,  Voyages  des  Souverains, 
I,  519. 


Chap.  IV]  ARCHBISHOP  TALAVEBA 


197 


necessary  than  ever.  Loaysa  was  told  that  he  could  render  no 
greater  service  to  God  and  to  the  king  than  by  defeating  it; 
minute  instructions  were  given  as  to  the  influences  that  he  must 
bring  to  bear,  and  he  was  reminded  that  Holy  Writ  permits  the 
use  of  craft  and  cunning  to  perform  the  work  of  God.  The 
extreme  anxiety  betrayed  in  the  letter  indicates  that  there  was 
much  more  involved  than  the  mere  defence  of  Lucero  and  Deza; 
it  was  with  Philip  and  Juana  that  he  was  wrestling  and  the  stake 
was  the  crown  of  Castile.  On  the  other  hand,  PhiUp,  doubtless 
won  by  the  gold  of  the  Conversos,  had  fairly  espoused  their 
cause  and  was  laboring  to  obtain  for  them  a  favorable  decision 
from  the  pope.  His  ambassador,  Philibert  of  Utrecht,  under 
date  of  June  28th,  reported  that  he  had  urged  Julius  II  not  to 
reject  the  appeal  of  the  Marranos  but  the  poUtic  pontiff  rephed 
that  he  must  reserve  his  decision  until  Ferdinand  and  Philip 
had  met.^ 

Undeterred  by  the  mutterings  of  the  rising  storm,   Lucero 
about  this  time  saw  in  Isabella's  death  a  chance  to  strike  at  a 
higher  quarry  than  he  had  hitherto  ventured  to  aim  at.     The 
Geronimite    Hernando  de   Talavera  had   won   her   affectionate 
veneration  as  her  confessor  and,  on  the  conquest  of  Granada, 
in  1492,  she  had  made  him  archbishop  of  the  province  founded 
there.     He  had  a  Jewish  strain  in  his  blood,  as  was  the  case  in 
so  many  Spanish  families;  he  was  in  his  eightieth  year,  he  was 
reverenced  as  the  pattern  and  exemplar  of  all  Christian  virtues 
and  he  devoted  himself  unsparingly  to  the  welfare  of  his  flock, 
spending  his  revenues  in  charity  and  seeking  by  persuasion  and 
example  to  win  over  to  the  faith  his  Moorish  subjects.    Yet  he 
was  not  without  enemies,  for  he  had  been  the  active  agent  in 
the  reclamation  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  in  1480,  of  royal 
revenues  to  the  amount  of  thirty  milHons  of  maravedis,  alienated 
by  Henry  IV  to    purchase  the  submission  of   rebellious  nobles 
and,  although  a  quarter  of  a  century  had  passed,  it  is  said  that 
the  vengeful  spirit  thus  aroused  was  still  eager  to  encompass 
his  ruin.^ 
Whatever    may    have    been    Lucero's    motive,    inquisitorial 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  621,  fol.  198. — 
Biblioteca  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  D,  118,  n.  11,  fol.  24. — Llorente,  Anales,  I, 
328. — Gachard,  Voyages  des  Souverains,  I,  548. 

^  Clemencin,  Elogio  de  la  Reina  Isabel,  pp.  144-5. — Pedraza,  Hist,  de  Granada, 
P.  IV,  cap.  xxxi  (Granada,  1638). 


198  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

methods  afforded  abundant  facilities  for  its  accomplishment. 
He  selected  a  woman  whom  he  had  tortured  on  the  charge  of 
being  a  Jewish  prophetess  and  maintaining  a  synagogue  in  her 
house.  He  threatened  her  with  further  torture  unless  she  should 
testify  to  what  she  had  seen  in  a  room  in  Talavera's  palace  and, 
on  her  replying  that  she  did  not  know,  he  instructed  her  that  an 
assembly  was  held,  divided  into  three  classes;  in  the  first  was 
the  archbishop,  with  the  bishops  of  Almeria,  Jaen  and  others; 
in  the  second,  the  dean  and  the  provisor  of  Granada,  the  treasurer, 
the  alcaide  and  other  officials;  in  the  third  the  prophetesses,  the 
sister  and  nieces  of  Talavera,  Doiia  Maria  de  Pefialosa  and  others. 
They  agreed  to  traverse  the  kingdom,  preaching  and  prophesying 
the  advent  of  Elias  and  the  Messiah,  in  concert  with  the  prophets 
who  were  in  the  house  of  Fernan  Alvarez  of  Toledo,  where  they 
were  crowned  with  golden  crowns.^  All  this  was  duly  sworn  to 
by  the  witness,  as  dictated  to  her  by  the  fiscal,  and  formed  a  basis 
for  the  prosecution  of  Talavera  and  his  family,  doubtless  sup- 
ported by  ample  corroborative  evidence,  readily  obtainable  in 
the  same  manner.  The  occurrence  of  the  name  of  the  Bishop  of 
Jaen  suggests  a  further  political  intrigue;  he  was  Alfonso  Suarez 
de  Fuentelsaz,  the  former  colleague  of  Deza  as  inquisitor-general 
and  was  no  doubt  known  as  inclining  to  the  Flemish  party,  as 
he  subsequently  accepted  from  Philip  the  presidency  of  the 
Royal  Council. 

Impenetrable  secrecy  was  one  of  the  most  cherished  principles 
of  inquisitorial  procedure,  but  Lucero  probably  desired  to  prepare 
the  public  for  the  impending  blow  and  whispers  concerning  it 
began  to  circulate.  Peter  Martyr  of  Anghiera,  who  was  attached 
to  the  royal  court,  wrote  on  January  3,  1506,  to  the  Count  of 
Tendilla,  Governor  of  Granada,  that  Lucero,  by  means  of 
witnesses  under  torture,  had  succeeded  in  imputing  Judaism  to 
the  archbishop  and  his  whole  family  and  household;  as  there 
was  no  one  more  holy  than  Talavera,  he  found  it  difficult  to 
beUeve  that  any  one  could  be  found  to  fabricate  such  a  charge.^ 
The  attack  commenced  by  arresting,  in  the  most  public  and 
offensive  manner,  Talavera's  nephew,  the  dean  and  the  officials 
of  his  church,  during  divine  service  and  in  his  presence,  evidently 
with  the  purpose  of  discrediting  him.  The  arrest  followed  of  his 
sister,  his  nieces  and  his  servants,  and  we  can  readily  conceive 

*  Archive  de  la  Catedral  de  Cordova,  Cajon  J,  n.  297. 
»  Pet.  Mart.  Angler.  Epist.  295. 


Chap.  IV]  PHILIP  AND  JUANA  199 

the  means  by  which  even  his  kindred  were  compelled  to  give 
evidence  incriminating  him,  as  we  gather  from  a  letter  of  Ferdi- 
nand, June  9,  1506,  to  his  ambassador  at  Rome,  Francisco  de 
Rojas,  in  which  he  says  that  the  testimony  against  Talavera 
is  that  of  his  sisters  and  kindred  and  servants/  Before  he  could 
be  arrested  and  prosecuted,  however,  special  authorization  from 
the  Holy  See  was  requisite,  for,  by  a  decree  of  Boniface  VIII, 
inquisitors  had  no  direct  juriscUction  over  bishops.  For  this, 
Ferdinand's  intervention  was  necessary  and,  after  some  hesitation, 
he  consented  to  make  the  application.  The  inculpatory  evidence 
given  by  Talavera's  family  was  sent  to  Rome;  Francisco  de 
Rojas  procured  the  papal  commission  for  his  trial  and  forwarded 
it,  June  3,  1506.' 

Before  it  was  despatched,  however,  Ferdinand's  position  had 
changed  with  the  arrival  in  Spain  of  his  daughter  Juana,  now 
Queen  of  Castile,  and  her  husband  Philip  of  Austria.  Eager  to 
throw  off  Ferdinand's  iron  rule  and  to  win  the  favor  of  the  new 
sovereigns,  most  of  the  nobles  had  flocked  to  them  and  with 
them  the  Conversos,  who  hoped  to  secure  a  modification  in  the 
rigor  of  the  Inquisition.  They  had  been  aroused  by  the  sufferings 
of  their  brethren  in  Cordova,  whose  cause  was  their  own,  and 
they  were  becoming  an  element  not  to  be  disregarded  in  the 
political  situation;  they  had  already  secured  a  hearing  in  the 
Roman  curia,  always  ready,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  to  welcome 
appellants  with  money  and  to  sacrifice  them  after  payment 
received;  they  had  obtained  from  Julius  II  commissions  trans- 
ferring from  the  Inquisition  cognizance  of  certain  cases — com- 
missions which  Ferdinand  repeatedly  asked  the  pope  to  withdraw 
and  doubtless  with  success,  as  they  do  not  appear  in  the  course 
of  events;  they  had  even  approached  Ferdinand  himself,  while 
in  Valladolid,  with  an  offer  of  a  hundred  thousand  ducats  if  he 
would  suspend  the  Inquisition  until  the  arrival  of  Juana  and 
Philip.  This  offer,  he  says  in  a  letter  of  June  9,  1506,  to  Rojas, 
he  spurned,  but  we  may  perhaps  doubt  his  disinterestedness 
when  he  adds  that,  as  Philip  has  disembarked  and  is  unfamiliar 

'  Llorente,  Hist.  crft.  Append,  n.  9. — Correspondence  of  Rojas  (Boletin, 
XXVIII,  448). 

^  Dom  Clemencin  (Elogio,  lUust.  xviii)  prints  a  noble  and  touching  letter  of 
reproof  from  Talavera  to  Ferdinand.  He  had  had  the  direction  of  royal  con- 
sciences too  long  to  feel  awe  of  royal  personages.  Spiritually  he  felt  himself  the 
king's  superior  and  his  perfectly  frank  simplicity  of  character  led  him  to  mani- 
fest this  without  disguise. 


200  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

with  Spanish  affairs,  he  had  secretly  ordered  Deza  to  suspend 
the  operations  of  all  the  tribunals — the  motive  of  which  evidently 
was  to  create  the  belief  that  Philip  was  responsible  for  it.  As 
for  Talavera,  he  adds,  as  it  would  greatly  scandalize  the  new 
converts  of  Granada,  if  they  thought  there  were  errors  of  faith 
in  him  whom  they  regarded  as  so  good  a  Christian,  he  had  con- 
cluded to  let  the  matter  rest  for  the  present  and  would  subse- 
quently send  instructions/  He  evidently  had  no  behef  in  Lucero's 
fabricated  evidence,  a  fact  to  be  borne  in  mind  when  we  consider 
his  attitude  in  the  ultimate  developments  of  the  affair.  This 
despatch,  of  course,  reached  Rojas  too  late  to  prevent  the  issuing 
of  the  commission  to  try  Talavera,  but  it  explains  why  that 
document  was  suppressed  when  it  arrived.  Deza  denied  receiving 
it;  it  disappeared  and  Talavera,  in  his  letter  of  January  23,  1507, 
to  Ferdinand,  manifests  much  anxiety  to  know  what  had  become 
of  it,  evidently  dreading  that  it  would  be  opportunely  found 
when  wanted. 

By  the  agreement  of  Villafdfila,  June  27,  1506,  Ferdinand 
bound  himself  to  abandon  Castile  to  Philip  and  Juana;  he 
departed  for  Aragon  and  busied  himself  with  preparations  for  a 
voyage  to  Naples,  whither  he  set  sail  September  4th.  Philip 
assumed  the  government  and  disembarrassed  himself  of  his  wife 
by  shutting  her  up  as  unfit  to  share  in  the  cares  of  royalty.  He 
was  amenable  to  the  golden  arguments  of  the  Conversos  and 
doubtless  had  not  forgotten  the  contempt  with  which  had  been 
treated  his  order  of  the  previous  year  to  suspend  the  Inquisition. 
He  therefore  naturally  was  in  no  haste  to  revive  its  functions. 
Ferdinand's  secretary  Almazan  writes  to  Rojas,  July  1st,  that  the 
king  and  the  grandees  have  imprisoned  Juana  and  no  one  is 
allowed  to  see  her;  he  has  in  vain  sought  to  get  some  prelates 
to  carry  letters  from  her  to  her  father,  but  no  one  ventures  to 
do  so;  the  grandees  have  done  this  to  partition  among  themselves 
the  royal  power,  the  Conversos  to  free  themselves  from  the 
Inquisition,  which  is  now  extinct.^ 


'  Correspondence  of  Rojas  (Boletin,  XVIII,  444,  448). — Gachard,  Voyages  des 
Souverains,  I,  534,  540. 

*  Correspondence  of  Rojas  (Boletin,  XVIII,  452). 

The  story  of  Queen  Juana  la  loca  is  one  of  the  saddest  in  the  annals  of  royalty 
and  her  treatment  by  her  father,  husband  and  son  is  a  libel  on  human  nature, 
but  no  one  who  has  impartially  examined  all  the  evidence  can  doubt  that  she 
was  incapable  of  governing. 


Chap.  IV]  THE  INQUISITION  SUCCUMBS  201 

The  people  of  Cordova  made  haste  to  take  advantage  of  the 
situation.  They  sent  a  powerful  appeal  to  Philip  and  Juana, 
stating  that  their  previous  complaints  had  been  intercepted 
through  Deza's  influence  and  accusing  Lucero  of  the  most  arbi- 
trary iniquities.^  They  asked  that  all  the  inquisitorial  officials 
at  Cordova  and  Toro  should  be  removed  and  the  whole  affair 
be  committed  to  the  Bishop  of  Leon.  Philip  referred  the  matter 
to  the  Comendador  mayor,  Garcilasso  de  la  Vega  and  to  Andrea  di 
Borgo,  ambassador  of  Maximilian  I,  two  laymen,  to  the  great 
scandal,  we  are  told,  of  all  ecclesiastics.^  The  Conversos  were 
triumphant  and  the  Inquisition  succumbed  completely.  The 
Suprema,  including  Deza  himself,  hastened  to  disclaim  all 
responsibility  for  Lucero's  misdeeds  in  a  letter  addressed  to  the 
chapter  of  Cordova,  in  which  it  said  that  the  accusations  brought 
against  him  seemed  incredible,  for  even  highwaymen,  when 
robbing  their  victims,  spare  their  lives,  while  here  not  only  the 
property  but  the  lives  of  the  victims  were  taken  and  the  honor 
of  their  descendants  to  the  tenth  generation.  But,  after  hearing 
the  narrative  of  the  Master  of  Toro  there  could  no  longer  be 
doubt  and  to  tolerate  it  would  be  to  approve  it.  Therefore,  the 
chapter  was  instructed  to  continue  to  prevent  these  iniquities 
and  their  majesties  would  be  asked  to  apply  a  remedy  and  to 
punish  their  authors.^  The  remedy  applied  was  to  compel  Deza 
to  subdelegate  irrevocably  to  Diego  Ramirez  de  Guzman,  Bishop 
of  Catania  and  member  of  the  Council  of  State,  power  to  supersede 
Lucero  and  revise  his  acts,  which  was  confirmed  by  a  papal  brief 
placing  in  Guzman's  hands  all  the  papers  and  prisoners  in  Cordova, 
Toro  and  Valladolid.^  Lucero  endeavored  to  anticipate  this  by 
burning  all  his  prisoners  so  as  to  get  them  out  of  the  way,  but 
after  the  auto  de  fe  was  announced  there  came  orders  from  the 
sovereigns  which  fortunately  prevented  the  holocaust.* 

The  relief  of  the  sufferers  seemed  assured,  but  the  situation  was 
radically  changed  by  the  sudden  death  of  Philip,  September  25, 
1506,  for  although  Juana  was  treated  nominally  as  queen,  she 
exercised  no  authority,  Deza  promptly  revoked  Guzman's  com- 
mission, of  which  the  papal  confirmation  seems  not  to  have  been 


'  Archive  de  la  Catedral  de  Cordova,  Cajon  A,  n.  5. 

*  Zurita,  Hist,  del  Rey  Hernando,  Lib.  vii,  cap.  vi. 

'  Archive  de  la  Catedral  de  Cordova,  Cajon  I,  n.  302. 

*  Ibidem,  n.  300. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  46. 


202  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

received;  he  took  possession  of  the  prisoners  at  Toro  and  sent  the 
Archdeacon  of  Torquemada  to  Cordova  to  do  the  same,  but 
Francisco  Osorio,  the  representative  of  Guzman,  refused  to  obey. 
The  people  of  Cordova  were  in  despair.  It  was  in  vain  that  they 
sent  delegations  to  Deza  and  petitioned  the  queen  to  save  them. 
Deza  was  immovable  and  the  queen  refused  to  act  in  this  as  in 
everything  else.  The  chapter,  every  member  of  which  was  an 
Old  Christian,  proud  of  his  limpieza,  assembled  on  October  16th 
to  consider  the  situation.  Some  of  the  most  prominent  dignitaries 
of  the  Church  had  already  been  arrested  by  Lucero  and  had  been 
treated  by  him  as  Jewish  dogs;  he  had  asserted  that  all  the  rest, 
and  most  of  the  nobles  and  gentlemen  of  the  city  and  of  other 
places,  were  apostates  who  had  converted  their  houses  into  syn- 
agogues; in  view  of  the  impentUng  peril,  it  was  unanimously 
resolved  to  defend  themselves,  while  the  citizens  at  large  declared 
that  they  would  sacrifice  life  and  property  rather  than  to  submit 
longer  to  such  insupportable  tyranny.^ 

If  the  eclipse  of  the  royal  authority  had  enabled  Deza  to 
restore  Lucero  to  power  it  also  afforded  opportunity  for  forcible 
resistance.  The  grandees  of  Castile  were  striving  to  recover  the 
independence  enjoyed  under  Henry  IV,  and  a  condition  of 
anarchy  was  approaching  rapidly.  The  two  great  nobles  of 
Cordova,  the  Count  of  Cabra,  Lord  of  Baena  and  the  Marquis  of 
Priego,  Lord  of  Aguilar  and  nephew  of  the  Great  Captain,  were 
nothing  loath  to  listen  to  the  entreaties  of  the  citizens,  especially 
as  the  marquis  had  been  summoned  by  Lucero  to  appear  for 
trial.  Meetings  were  held  in  which  formal  accusations  of  Lucero 
and  his  promotor  fiscal,  Juan  de  Arriola,  were  laid  before  Padre 
Fray  Francisco  de  Cuesta,  comendador  of  the  convent  of  la 
Merced,  who  seems  to  have  assumed  the  leadership  of  the  move- 
ment. He  pronounced  judgement,  ordering  Lucero  and  the  fiscal 
to  be  arrested  and  their  property  to  be  confiscated.  Under  the 
lead  of  Cabra  and  Priego  the  citizens  arose  to  execute  the  judge- 
ment. On  November  9th  they  broke  into  the  alcazar,  where  the 
Inquisition  held  its  seat,  they  seized  the  fiscal  and  some  of  the 
subordinates  and  liberated  the  prisoners,  whose  recital  of  their 
wrongs  excited  still  more  the  popular  indignation,  but  no  blood 
was  shed  and  Lucero  saved  himself  by  flight.^    The  whole  pro- 

*  Archive  de  la  Catedral  de  Cordova,  Cajon  J,  n.  295,  298. — Archive  de  Siman- 
cas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  unico,  fol.  46. 
'  Archive  de  la  Catedral  de  Cordova,  Cajon  I,  n.  301. 


Chap.  IV]  PERSECUTION  RENEWED 


203 


ceeding  appears  to  have  been  orderly:  a  commission  of  ecclesiastics 
and  laymen  was  appointed,  to  which  the  kinsmen  and  friends  of 
the  prisoners  gave  security  that  they  should  be  forthcoming  for 
trial,  as  soon  as  there  should  be  a  king  in  the  land  to  administer 
justice.  This  engagement  was  duly  kept  and  their  temporary 
liberation  under  bail  was  justified  on  the  ground  that  many  of 
them  had  been  incarcerated  for  six  or  seven  years  and  that  all 
were  in  danger  of  perishing  by  starvation,  for  they  were  penniless, 
'  their  property  having  been  confiscated  and  Deza  having  ordered 
the  receiver  of  confiscations  not  to  provide  for  them.^ 

When  the  news  of  this  uprising  reached  Deza  he  promptly, 
November  18th,  commissioned  his  nephew,  Pedro  Juc4rez  de  Deza, 
Archbishop-elect  of  the  Indies,  to  prosecute  and  punish  all 
concerned,  while  by  his  orders  the  tribunal  of  Toledo  intercepted 
and  threw  into  prison  Doctor  Alonso  de  Toro,  sent  by  the  city 
to  present  its  case  to  the  queen.  Other  envoys,  however,  bore 
instructions  to  ask  for  the  removal  of  Deza  and  the  prosecution 
of  Lucero  and  his  officials,  coupled  with  the  intimation  that  steps 
had  been  taken  to  convoke  all  the  cities  of  Andalusia  and  Castile 
to  devise  measures  of  protection  against  the  intolerable  tyranny 
of  the  Inquisition.^  This  plan  seems  to  have  been  abandoned 
but,  early  in  January,  1507,  the  Bishop  of  Cordova,  Juan  de 
Daza,  in  conjunction  with  the  clerical  and  secular  authorities, 
sent  a  solemn  appeal  to  the  pope,  asking  him  to  appoint  Arch- 
bishop Ximenes  and  the  Bishop  of  Catania  or  of  Malaga,  with 
full  power  to  investigate  and  to  act,  and  this  they  accompanied, 
January  10th,  with  a  petition  to  Ferdinand,  who  was  still  in  Naples, 
to  support  their  request  to  the  pope.^  Deza,  however,  continued 
to  command  Ferdinand's  unwavering  support  and  the  result  was 
seen  in  the  prompt  and  uncompromising  action  of  Julius  II. 
He  wrote  to  Deza  that  the  Jews,  pretending  to  be  Christians, 
who  had  dared  to  rise  against  the  Inquisition,  must  be  extermi- 
nated root  and  branch;  no  labor  was  to  be  spared  to  suppress  this 
pestilence  before  it  should  spread,  to  hunt  up  all  who  had  par- 
ticipated in  it  and  to  exercise  the  utmost  severity  in  punishing 
them,  without  appeal,  for  their  crimes."* 

'  Lorenzo  de  Padilla,  Cronica  de  Felipe  I  (Coleccion  de  Documentos,  VIII, 
153). — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  46. 

^  Archivo  de  la  Catedral  de  Cordova,  Cajon  I,  n.  301. — Archivo  de  Simancas, 
loc.  cit. 

'  Archivo  de  la  Catedral  de  Cordova,  Cajon  A,  n.  5;  Cajon  I,  n.  304. 

*  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  Ill,  fol.  320. — See  Appendix. 


204  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

Thus  stimulated  and  encouraged,  Lucero  resumed  his  activity 
and  the  hberated  prisoners  were  surrendered  to  him.  Peter 
Martyr  writes  from  the  court,  March  7,  1507,  to  Archbishop 
Talavera,  that  his  sister  and  his  nephew  the  Dean  of  Granada, 
Francisco  Herrera — who  had  doubtless  been  released  in  the 
rising  of  November  9th — had  been  thrown  in  prison  in  Cordova. 
Talavera  himself,  moreover,  was  put  on  trial  before  the  papal 
nuncio,  Giovanni  RufTo,  and  assessors  duly  commissioned  by  the 
pope,  showing  that  Ferdinand's  scruples  as  to  scandahzing  the 
people  of  Granada  had  vanished  in  the  fierce  resolve  to  vindicate 
Lucero  and  that  the  missing  papal  brief  had  been  duly  found. 
Peter  Martyr  describes  his  earnest  efforts  to  convince  the  judges 
of  Talavera's  holy  hfe  and  spotless  character,  to  which  they  re- 
plied that  all  this  might  be  true  but  their  business  was  to  ascertain 
the  secrets  of  his  heart.^  By  the  time  the  evidence  was  sent  to 
Rome,  however,  his  conviction  was  no  longer  desired;  the 
testimony  was  pronounced  to  be  worthless  and  Pascual  de  la 
Fuente,  Bishop  of  Burgos,  who  was  in  attendance  on  the  curia, 
was  an  earnest  witness  in  his  favor.^  The  papal  sentence  was 
acquittal  and  this  apparently  carried  with  it  the  exoneration  of 
his  kindred — but  it  came  too  late.  On  May  21st  Peter  Martyr 
€xultingly  writes  to  him  that  the  dean  and  his  sister  with  their 
mother  and  the  rest  of  his  innocent  household  had  been  set  free, 
but  already  he  had  gone  to  a  higher  tribunal.  On  Ascension-day 
(May  13th)  he  had  walked,  bareheaded  and  barefooted,  in  the 
procession  through  the  streets  of  Granada,  when  a  violent  fever 
set  in  and  carried  him  off  the  next  day.  He  had  accumulated 
no  treasure,  having  spent  all  his  revenues  on  the  poor;  he  left  no 
provision  for  his  family  and  the  Bishop  of  Malaga  charitably 
gave  to  his  sister  a  house  in  Granada  to  shelter  her  old  age. 
His  reputation  for  sanctity  is  seen  in  the  accounts  which  at  once 
were  circulated,  with  universal  credence  of  the  miracles  wrought 
by  him  in  curing  the  sick.^ 


>  Pet.  Mart.  Epistt.,  333,  334,  335. 

^  Pedraza,  Hist,  eccles.  de  Granada,  P.  iv,  cap.  31-34. 

'  Pet.  Mart.  Epistt.,  342,  344,  457.— Pedraza,  loc.  cit. 

The  Inquisition  which  had  hunted  him  to  the  death  could  never  forgive  him 
for  his  escape.  When,  in  1559,  Inquisitor-general  Valdes  compiled  the  first 
Index  of  prohibited  books,  a  long-forgotten  controversial  tract  against  the  Jews, 
printed  by  Talavera  in  1480,  was  resuscitated  and  condemned  in  order  to  cast  a 
slur  upon  his  memory  and  this  was  carefully  preserved  through  the  long  series 


Chap.  IV]  POLITICAL  INTRIGUES  205 

The  reaction  in  favor  of  the  Inquisition,  led  by  Ferdinand  and 
Juhus  II,  had  evidently  been  short-lived,  for  the  political  situa- 
tion dominated  everything  and  king  and  pope  found  it  advisable 
to  yield.  Juana  was  keeping  herself  secluded  with  the  corpse 
of  her  husband  and  was  refusing  to  govern.  The  rival  factions 
of  the  two  grandfathers  of  Charles  V,  Maximilian  I  and  Ferdi- 
nand, each  striving  for  the  regency  during  his  minority,  were 
both  desirous  of  the  support  of  the  Converses  and  thus  the 
question  of  the  Cordovan  prisoners  attained  national  importance 
as  one  on  which  all  parties  took  sides.  Ximenes,  the  Duke  of 
Alva  and  the  Constable  of  Castile,  the  heads  of  Ferdinand's  party, 
held  a  conference  at  Cavia  and  listened  to  the  complaints  against 
Deza,  for  which  they  promised  to  find  a  remedy.  The  friends  of 
the  prisoners,  however,  seemed  more  inclined  towards  the  faction 
of  Maximilian;  they  offered  money  to  defray  the  expenses  of 
troops  to  be  sent  to  Spain  to  resist  Ferdinand's  return  and  it 
was  currently  rumored  that  four  thousand  men  were  gathered 
in  a  Flemish  port  ready  to  embark.  It  is  not  easy  to  penetrate 
the  secret  intrigues  culminating  in  the  settlement  which  gave 
the  regency  to  Ferdinand,  but  Ximenes,  who  represented  him, 
took  advantage  of  the  situation,  with  his  usual  skill,  to  further 
his  own  ambition,  which  was  to  gain  the  cardinal's  hat  and 
Deza's  position  as  inquisitor-general.^  For  the  former  of  these 
Ferdinand  had  made  application  as  early  as  November  8,  1505, 
and  had  repeated  the  request  October  30,  1506;  it  was  granted 
in  secret  consistory,  January  4, 1507,  and  was  published  May  17th.^ 
For  the  latter,  the  complaints  of  the  Conversos  afforded  sub- 
stantial reasons;  we  have  seen  that  Cordova  had  petitioned  the 
pope  to  commission  Ximenes  as  its  judge  and  his  appointment 
would  help  to  pacify  the  troubles,     Ferdinand  at  length  recog- 

of  Spanish  Indexes  down  to  the  last  one  in  1790. — Reusch,  Die  Indices  Libror. 
Prohib.,  p.  232.— Indice  Ultimo,  p.  262. 

*  Zurita,  Hist,  del  Rey  Hernando,  Lib.  vii,  cap.  xxix,  xxxiv,  xlii;  Lib.  viii, 
cap.  i,  V. — Villa,  La  Reina  Juana,  pp.  462,  463. 

Zurita,  who,  as  an  official  of  the  Suprema,  no  doubt  reflects  the  tradition  of  the 
Inquisition,  says  that  many  murmured  at  seeing  Ferdinand,  to  win  over  Ximenes, 
sacrifice  Deza,  for  the  latter  was  a  most  notable  prelate,  a  man  of  great  learning 
and  devoted  to  the  king's  service.  He  has  claims  too  on  our  respect  as  the 
patron  of  Columbus,  befriending  and  encouraging  him  when  disheartened  by  the 
incredulity  of  the  court. — Irving's  Life  and  Voyages  of  Columbus,  Book  ii.  Chap. 
3,  4;  Book  xviii.  Chap  3. 

'  Correspondence  of  Rojas  (Boletin,  XXVIII,  440,  457). — Ciacconii  et  Oldoini 
Vit.  Pontif.  Ill,  261. 


206 


ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 


nized  that  Deza's  sacrifice  was  inevitable,  and  the  way  was  made 
easy  for  him,  as  he  was  allowed  to  resign.  On  May  18th  Ferdinand 
writes  to  Ximenes  from  Naples  that  he  had  received  Deza's 
resignation  and  had  taken  the  necessary  steps  to  secure  for  him 
the  succession;  he  has  two  requests  to  make— that  he  shall  foster 
piety  and  religion  by  appointing  only  the  best  men  and  that  he 
shall  exercise  the  utmost  care  that  nothing  shall  be  allowed  to 
impair  Deza's  dignity.^  The  commission  as  inquisitor-general 
was  duly  issued  on  June  5,  1507. 

The  hatred  excited  by  Lucero  had  been  too  wide-spread  and 
the  friends  of  the  prisoners  were  too  powerful  to  be  satisfied  with 
the   mere   substitution   of   Ximenes   for   Deza,   and   there   was 
evidently  an  understanding  that  the  matter  was  not  to  be  dropped. 
As  early  as  May  1st,  Peter  Martyr  writes  that  it  is  reported  that 
the  imprisoned  witnesses,  corrupted  by  Lucero,  are  to  be  released 
and  that  he  will  expiate  with  due  punishment  his  unprecedented 
crimes.'     Some  such  promise  was  probably  necessary  for  the 
pacification  of  the  land,   but   the  delay  in  its  performance  is 
significant   of   protection   at   the  fountain-head   of   justice.     It 
assumed  at  first  the  shape  of  an  action  brought  by  the  chapter 
and  city  of  Cordova  before  the  pope,  charging  Lucero  with  the 
evil  wrought  by  his  suborning  some  witnesses  and  compelling 
others  by  punishment  to  testify  that  the  plaintiffs  were  heretics. 
Julius  II  commissioned  Fray  Francisco  de  Mayorga  as  apostolic 
judge  to  try  the  case,  and,  on  October  17,  1507,  he  decreed  that 
Lucero  be  imprisoned   and  held   to   answer   at  law.     Nothing 
further  was  done,  however,  and  the  impatient  citizens  addressed 
a  memorial  to  Queen  Juana,  asking  her  to  send  some  one  to 
inform  himself  about  it  and  report  to  her.^    The  action  of  the 
apostolic  judge  seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  a  mere  formahty; 
the  months  passed  away  and  it  was  not  until  May  18,  1508,  that 
the  Suprema  took  independent  cognizance  of  the  matter,  when 
Ximenes    and   his   colleagues,    except   Aguirre,    all   voted   that 
Lucero  should  be  arrested."    Peter  Martyr  intimates  more  than 

1  Gomesii  de  Rebus  gestis  Francisci  Ximenii,  fol.  77  (Compluti,  1569). 

»  Pet.  Mart.  Epist.,  339. 

'  Archive  de  la  Catedral  de  Toledo,  Cajon  I,  n.  303. 

*  Biblioteca  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  G,  61,  fol.  208. 

The  Licenciado  Ortuno  Ibanez  de  Aguirre  was  a  layman  whom  Ferdinand 
forced  into  the  Suprema  against  the  earnest  resistance  of  its  members,  probably 
with  the  view  of  screening  Lucero.  He  was  the  dme  damnee  of  Ferdinand  who 
corresponded  with  him  confidentially  when  he  wanted  anything  done.  His  fidelity 


Chap.  IV]  LUCERO' S  VICTIMS  RELEASED  207 

once  that  numbers  of  the  Suprema  were  suspected  of  compUcity 
with  Lucero  and  assures  us  that  the  Council  did  not  act  without 
thorough  investigation  of  numerous  witnesses  and  interminable 
masses  of  documents,  revealing  an  incredible  accumulation  of 
impossible  and  fantastic  accusations  contrived  to  bring  infamy 
on  all  Spain/ 

It  was  apparently  the  first  time  that  an  inquisitor  had  been 
thus  publicly  put  on  trial  for  official  malfeasance  and  the  oppor- 
tunity was  improved  to  render  the  spectacle  a  solemn  one, 
fitted  not  only  to  satisfy  the  national  interest  felt  in  the  case 
but  to  magnify  the  office  of  the  accused  by  the  scale  of  the 
machinery  employed  to  deal  with  him.  Lucero  was  carried  in 
chains  to  Burgos,  where  the  court  was  in  residence,  and  was 
confined  in  the  castle  under  strict  guard.  Ximenes  assembled 
a  Congregacion  Catdlica,  composed  of  twenty-one  members  besides 
himself,  including  a  large  portion  of  the  Royal  Council,  the 
Inquisitor-general  of  Aragon  and  other  inquisitors,  several  bishops 
and  various  other  dignitaries — in  short,  an  imposing  representa- 
tion of  the  piety  and  learning  of  the  land.'  After  numerous 
sessions,  presided  over  by  Ximenes,  sentence  was  rendered  July 
9,  1508,  and  was  published  August  1st,  at  Valladolid,  whither  the 
court  had  removed,  in  presence  of  Ferdinand  and  his  magnates 
and  a  great  concourse  assembled  to  lend  solemnity  to  this  resto- 
ration of  the  honor  of  Castile  and  Andalusia,  which  had  been  so 
deeply  compromised  by  the  pretended  revelations  extorted  by 
Lucero.  This  weighty  verdict  declared  that  there  were  no 
grounds  for  the  asserted  existence  of  synagogues,  the  preaching 
of  sermons  and  the  assemblies  of  missionaries  of  Judaism  or  for 
the  prosecution  of  those  accused.  The  witnesses — or  rather 
prisoners — were  discharged  and  everything  relating  to  these 
fictitious  crimes  was  ordered  to  be  expunged  from  the  records. 
To  complete  the  vindication  of  the  memory  of  the  victims, 
Ferdinand  ordered  the  rebuilding  of  the  houses  which  had  been 


was  stimulated  with  favors,  as  when  in  December,  1513,  Ferdinand  gave  him  an 
order  on  the  receiver  of  Seville  for  300,000  mrs.  (Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inqui- 
sicion,  liib.  9,  fol.  14.5).  Las  Casas,  however,  expresses  a  favorable  opinion  of  him 
and  he  was  one  of  the  executors  of  Isabella's  testament. — Hist,  de  las  Indias, 
Lib.  Ill,  cap.  138  (Coleccion  de  Documentos,  LXVI,  81). 

»  Pet.  Mart.  Epistt.,  370,  382,  385. 

^  In  contrast  with  these  spectacular  proceedings  was  the  removal,  by  the 
inquisitor-general  in  1500,  without  even  stating  the  reasons,  of  Diego  Ferndndez 
de  Boniila,  Inquisitor  of  Extremadura. — Llorente,  Anales,  I,  260. 


208  ESTABLISHMEST  OF  THE  ISQUISITIOX  [Book  I 

torn  down  under  the  provisions  of  the  canon  law  requiring  the 
destruction  of  the  conventicles  of  heresy/  By  impUcation,  the 
acquittal  of  the  prisoners  competed  Lucero,  but  all  this  was 
merel}'  preliminary  to  his  trial. 

Ferdinand's  hand  had  been  forced;  he  had  been  obUged  to 
yield  to  pubUc  opinion,  but  his  resolve  was  inflexible  to  undo 
as  far  as  he  could  the  results  reached  by  Ximenes.  In  October 
he  visited  Cordova,  where  he  rewarded  some  officials  of  the 
tribunal  by  grants  out  of  the  confiscated  estates,  wliich  should 
have  been  restored  when  the  proceecfings  were  annulled.  It  is 
true  that  the  judge  of  confiscations,  Licenciado  Simancas,  was 
suspended,  but  in  November,  1509,  he  was  ordered  to  resume 
his  functions  and  to  act  as  he  had  formerly  done.  We  happen 
to  know  that,  in  1513,  the  house  of  the  unfortunate  Bachiller 
]yiembreque  was  stiU  in  possession  of  the  Inquisition.  There  was 
no  reUef  for  those  who  had  suffered.  When  the  new  inquisitor, 
Diego  Lopez  de  Cortegano,  Archdeacon  of  Se^'ille,  revoked  Lu- 
cero's  sentence  on  the  Licenciado  Daza,  who  had  been  penanced 
and  his  property  confiscated,  the  purchasers  who  had  bought 
it  complained  to  Ferdinand  and  he  expressed  his  wrath  by 
promptly  dismissing  the  inquisitor  and  ordering  aU  the  papers 
in  the  case  to  be  sent  to  the  Suprema  for  reA-iew  and  action. 
The  vacancy  thus  created  was  not  easy  to  fill,  for  when,  in 
September,  1509.  Ferdinand  offered  the  place  to  Alonso  de 
Mariana  he  decUned,  saying  that  it  would  kill  him,  but  he  agreed 
to  take  the  tribunal  of  Toledo,  and  it  was  not.  until  February, 
1510,  that  the  Licenciado  ]\Iondragon  was  transferred  from 
Valladolid  to  take  Cortegano's  place.  In  fact,  the  interests 
involved  in  the  confiscations  were  too  many  and  too  powerful 
for  the  \'ictims  to  obtain  justice.  Martin  Alonso  Conchina  had 
been  condemned  by  Lucero  to  reconciliation  and  confiscation; 
when  the  pressure  was  removed  he  revoked  his  confession  as 
having  been  extorted  by  threats  and  fear,  whereupon  the  con- 
fiscated property  was  placed  in  sequestration  awaiting  the  result. 


'  Pet.  Mart.  Epist.,  393.— Llorente,  Memoria  historica,  p.  145  (Madrid,  1S12\ 
— Llorente,  Afiales,  I,  356. — Gomesii  de  Rebus  F.  Ximenii,  fol.  77. — Lorenzo  de 
Padilla  (Coleccion  de  Documentos,  "\*III,  154). 

Llorente's  account  of  the  proceedings  at  Valladolid  is  drawn  from  Bravo's 
"Catalogo  de  los  Obispos  de  Cordova "  (Cordova.  177S\  It  is  perhaps  worth 
remarking  that,  in  my  copy  of  that  work,  the  sheet  containing  these  passages  is 
lacking — probably  owing  to  inquisitorial  censorship. 


Chap.  IV]  REACTION— ESCAPE  OF  LUCEBO  209 

Unluckily  for  him  one  of  the  items,  a  ground-rent  of  9000  mrs. 
a  year  had  been  given,  in  April,  1506,  to  the  unprincipled  secretary 
Calcena,  with  the  result  that  one  of  the  new  inquisitors,  Andres 
Sanchez  de  Torquemada,  promptly  arrested  Conchina,  tried  him 
again,  convicted  him  and  sentenced  him  to  perpetual  imprison- 
ment, so  that  the  confiscation  held  good  and  the  ground-rent, 
with  all  arrears,  was  confirmed  to  Calcena  by  a  royal  cedula  of 
December  23,  1509.  There  seems  to  have  still  been  some  obstacle 
to  this  reaction  in  the  episcopal  Ordinary,  Francisco  de  Simancas, 
Archdeacon  of  Cordova  for,  in  February,  1510,  Ferdinand  wrote 
to  the  bishop  that,  without  letting  it  be  known  that  the  order 
came  from  the  king,  he  must  be  replaced  with  some  one  zealous 
for  the  furtherance  of  justice  and,  a  month  later,  this  command 
was  peremptorily  repeated.  It  is  true  that  the  extravagant 
wickedness  of  Lucero  was  scarce  to  be  dreaded,  but,  with  a 
tribunal  reconstructed  under  such  auspices,  the  people  of  Cordova 
could  not  hope  for  justice  tempered  with  mercy  and  its  pro- 
ductive activity  is  evidenced  by  the  large  drafts  made,  in  1510, 
on  its  receiver  of  confiscations.  We  may  assume  that  Ximenes 
looked  on  this  with  disfavor  for,  in  a  letter  to  Ferdinand,  after 
his  return  from  the  expedition  to  Oran  in  1509,  he  supplicates 
that  the  decision  of  the  Congregation  be  maintained  for  he  has 
never  infringed  it  and  never  intends  to  do  so.* 

As  for  the  author  of  the  evil,  Lucero  himself,  he  was  sent  in 
chains  to  Burgos  with  some  of  his  accomplices.  Ximenes,  as 
inquisitor-general,  had  full  power,  as  we  have  seen,  to  dismiss 
and  punish  them  but,  for  some  occult  reason,  a  papal  commission 
for  their  trial  was  applied  for.  This  caused  delay  under  which 
Ferdinand  chafed,  for  he  wrote,  September  30,  1509,  to  his 
ambassador  complaining  that  it  caused  great  inconvenience  and 
ordering  him  to  urge  the  pope  to  issue  it  at  once  so  that  it  could 
be  sent  by  the  first  courier.^  "\A'hen  it  came,  it  empowered  the 
Suprema  to  try  the  case  and  Ferdinand,  who  warmly  espoused 
Lucero 's  cause,  expressed  his  feelings  unequivocally  in  a  letter 
of  April  7,  1510 — "the  prisoners  say  that  they  have  been  long 
in  prison  and  those  who  informed  against  them  have  gone  to 
Portugal  or  other  parts,  and  others  have  been  burnt  or  penanced 

1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  12,  13,  21,  31,  32,  33,  41,  42, 
43,  48,  58,  61,  62,  72,  80,  86,  130;  Lib.  9,  fol.  146;  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion, 
Leg.  unico,  fol.  33. 

^  Ibidem,  Libro  3,  fol.  23. 

14 


210  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

as  heretics,  showing  clearly  that  they  testified  falsely,  and  they 
Bupplicate  me  to  provide  that  their  trial  be  by  inquisitorial  and 
not  by  accusatorial  process,  so  that  they  shall  not  be  exposed 
to  greater  infamy  than  hitherto  by  dead  or  perjured  witnesses, 
especially  as  the  law  provides  that  the  trial  be  summary  and 
directed  only  to  reach  the  truth.  There  is  great  compassion  for 
their  long  imprisonment  and  suffering,  wherefore  I  beg  and 
charge  you  to  look  well  into  the  matter  and  treat  it  conscien- 
tiously and  with  diligence  for  its  speedy  termination,  with  which 
I  shall  be  well  pleased."^ 

In  spite  of  this  urgency  the  trial  dragged  on,  much  delay  being 
caused  by  the  difficulty  of  finding  an  advocate  willing  to  under- 
take Lucero's  defence.  The  Suprema  selected  the  Bachiller  de  la 
Torre,  but  he  declined  to  serve  and  Ferdinand,  on  May  16th, 
expressed  his  fear  that  no  one  would  assume  the  duty,  July  19th 
he  writes  that  Lucero  complains  that  he  still  has  no  counsel  and 
he  suggests  that,  if  none  of  the  lawyers  of  the  royal  court  can  be 
trusted.  Doctor  Juan  de  Ordufla  of  Valladolid  be  called  in  and 
his  fees  be  paid  by  the  Inquisition.  The  suggestion  was  adopted 
and,  on  August  20th,  Ferdinand  wrote  personally  to  Ordufia 
ordering  him  to  take  charge  of  the  defence  and  see  that  Lucero 
suffered  no  wrong,  and  at,  the  same  time,  he  wrote  to  the  Uni- 
versity of  Valladolid  to  give  Orduiia  the  requisite  leave  of  absence. 
Under  this  royal  pressure,  and  considering  that  the  adverse 
witnesses  had  been  largely  burnt  or  frightened  into  flight,  it  is 
perhaps  rather  creditable  to  the  Suprema  that  it  ventured  to 
dismiss  Lucero,  without  inflicting  further  punishment  on  him. 
He  retired  to  the  Seville  canonry,  which  he  had  acquired  by  the 
ruin  of  the  Archdeacon  of  Castro,  and  there  he  ended  his  days 
in  peace.  In  1514,  Ferdinand  manifested  his  undiminished 
sympathy  by  a  gift  of  15,000  mrs,  to  Juan  Carrasco,  the  former 
portero  of  the  tribunal  of  Cordova,  to  indemnify  him  for  losses 
and  sufferings  which  he  claimed  to  have  endured  in  the  rising 
of  1506.^  Yet  before  we  utterly  condemn  him  for  his  share  in 
this  nefarious  business  we  should  make  allowance  for  the  influence 
of  Lucero's  accomplice,  his  secretary  Calcena,  who  was  always 
at  hand  to  poison  his  mind  and  draft  his  letters.  To  the  same 
malign  obsession  may  doubtless  also  be  attributed  an  order  of 
Charles  V,  in  1519,  requiring  the  Cordovan  authorities  to  bestow 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libre  3,  fol.  84. 

*  Ibidem,  fol.  90,  106,  118,  119,  375.— Gomesii  de  Rebus  Ximenii,  fol.  77. 


Chap.  IV]  INQUISITORIAL  METHODS  211 

the  first  vacant  scrivenership  on  Diego  Marino,  who  had  been 
Lucero's  notary/ 

That  Lucero  was  an  exceptional  monster  may  well  be  admitted, 
but  when  such  wickedness  could  be  safely  perpetrated  for  years 
and  only  be  exposed  and  ended  through  the  accidental  inter- 
vention of  Philip  and  Juana,  it  may  safely  be  assumed  that  the 
temptations   of   secrecy   and  irresponsibility   rendered  frightful 
abuses,  if  not  universal  at  least  frequent.     The  brief  reign  of 
Philip   led   other   sorely   vexed   communities   to   appeal   to   the 
sovereigns  for  rehef,   and  some  of  their  memorials  have  been 
preserved.     One  from  Jaen  relates  that  the  tribunal  of  that  city 
procured  from  Lucero  a  useful  witness  whom  for  five  years  he 
had  kept  in  the  prison  of  Cordova  to  swear  to  what  was  wanted. 
His  name  was  Diego  de  Algeciras  and,  if  the  petitioners  are  to 
be  believed,  he  was,  in  addition  to  being  a  perjurer,  a  drunkard, 
a  gambler,  a  forger  and  a  clipper  of  coins.     This  worthy  was 
brought  to  Jaen  and  performed  his  fimctions  so  satisfactorily 
that    the    wealthiest    Conversos    were    soon    imprisoned.      Two 
hundred  wretches  crowded  the  filthy  gaol  and  it  was  requisite 
to  forbid  the  rest  of  the  Conversos  from  leaving  the  city  without 
a  license.     With  Diego's  assistance  and  the  free  use  of  torture, 
on  both  accused  and  witnesses,  it  was  not  difficult  to  obtain 
whatever  evidence  was  desired.     The  notary  of  the  tribunal, 
Antonio  de  Barcena,  was  especially  successful  in  this.     On  one 
occasion  he  locked  a  young  girl  of  fifteen  in  a  room,  stripped 
her  naked  and  scourged  her  until  she  consented  to  bear  testimony 
against  her  mother.     A  prisoner  was  carried  in  a  chair  to  the 
auto  de  fe  with  his  feet  burnt  to  the  bone;  he  and  his  wife  were 
burnt  alive  and  then  two  of  their  slaves  were  imprisoned  and 
forced  to  give  such  evidence  as  was  necessary  to  justify  the 
execution.     The  cells  in  which  the  unfortunates  were  confined 
in  heavy  chains  were  narrow,  dark,  humid,  filthy  and  overrun 
with  vermin,  while  their  sequestrated  property  was  squandered 
by  the  officials,  so  that  they  nearly  starved  in  prison  while  their 
helpless  children  starved  outside.     Granting  that  there  may  be 
exaggeration  in  this,  the  solid  substratum  of  truth  is  clear  from 
the  fact  that  the  petitioners  only  asked  that  the  tribunal   be 
placed  under  the  control  of  the  Bishop  of  Jaen — that  bishop  being 
Alfonso  Suarez  de  Fuentelsaz,  one  of  Torquemada's  inquisitors, 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  9,  fol.  26. 


212  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

who  had  risen  to  be  a  colleague  of  Deza.  He  had  not  been  a 
merciful  judge,  as  many  of  his  sentences  attest,  yet  the  miserable 
Conversos  of  Jaen  were  ready  to  fly  to  him  for  relief/ 

A  memorial  from  Arjona,  a  considerable  town  near  Jaen, 
illustrates  a  different  phase  of  the  subject.  It  relates  that  a 
certain  Alvaro  de  Escalera  of  that  place  conspired  with  other 
evil  men  to  report  to  the  inquisitors  of  Jaen  that  there  were 
numerous  heretics  in  Arjona,  so  that  when  confiscations  came 
to  be  sold  they  could  buy  the  property  cheap.  In  due  time  an 
inquisitor  came  with  the  notary  Barcena,  No  Term  of  Grace 
was  given,  but  the  Edict  of  Faith  was  published,  frightening  the 
inhabitants  with  its  fulminations  unless  they  testified  against 
their  neighbors.  Then  a  Dominican  preached  a  fiery  sermon  to 
the  effect  that  all  Conversos  were  really  Jews,  whom  it  was  the 
duty  of  Christians  to  destroy.  The  inquisitors  then  sent  for  the 
slaves  of  the  Conversos,  promising  them  liberty  if  they  would 
testify  against  their  masters  and  assuring  them  of  secrecy.  The 
notary  followed  by  traversing  the  town  with  Escalera  and  his 
friends,  proclaiming  that  there  was  a  fine  of  ten  reales  on  all 
who  would  not  come  forward  with  testimony,  and  the  exaction 
of  the  fine  from  a  number  had  a  quickening  influence  on  the 
memories  of  others.  Then  a  house  to  house  canvass  was  made 
for  evidence;  the  women  were  told  that  it  was  impossible  that 
they  should  not  know  the  Jewish  tendencies  of  their  neighbors; 
they  could  give  what  evidence  they  pleased  for  their  names 
would  not  be  divulged;  they  were  not  obliged  to  prove  it,  for 
the  accused  had  to  disprove  it.  Those  who  would  not  talk  were 
threatened  that  they  would  be  carried  to  Jaen  and  made  to 
accuse  their  neighbors,  and,  in  fact,  a  number  were  taken  and 
compelled  to  give  evidence  in  prison.  Then  the  inquisitors 
departed  with  the  accumulated  testimony;  there  was  peace  in 
Arjona  for  three  months  and  the  Conversos  recovered  from 
their  fright.  Suddenly  one  night  there  arrived  the  notary,  the 
receiver  and  some  officials;  they  quietly  aroused  the  regidores 
and  alcaldes  and  made  them  collect  a  force  of  armed  men  who 
were  stationed  to  guard  the  walls  and  gates.  When  morning 
came  the  work  of  arresting  the  suspects  was  commenced;  their 
property  was  sequestrated,  their  houses  locked  and  their  children 
were  turned  into  the  street,  while  the  officials  carried  off  their 
prisoners,  who  were   thrust  into   the   already  crowded   gaol  of 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  43. 


Chap.  IV]  INQUISITORIAL  METHODS  213 

Jaen.  The  confiscations  were  auctioned  off  and  those  who  had 
plotted  the  raid  had  ample  opportunity  of  speculating  in  bar- 
gains.^ 

Still  other  methods  are  detailed  in  a  memorial  from  Llerena, 
the  seat  of  one  of  the  older  tribunals  with  jurisdiction  over 
Extremadura.  It  stated  that  for  many  years  the  Inquisition 
there  had  found  little  or  nothing  to  do,  until  there  came  a  new 
judge,  the  Licenciado  Bravo.  He  was  a  native  of  Fregenal,  a 
town  of  the  province,  where  he  had  bitter  law-suits  and  active 
enmities;  he  had  had  two  months'  training  under  Lucero  at 
Cordova  and  he  came  armed  with  ample  evidence  gathered 
there.  On  his  arrival,  without  waiting  for  formalities  or  further 
testimony,  he  made  a  large  number  of  arrests  and  sent  to  Badajoz 
where  he  seized  forty  more  and  brought  them  to  Llerena.  They 
were  mostly  men  of  wealth  whose  fortunes  were  attractive  objects 
of  spoliation,  and  Bravo  took  care  of  his  kindred  by  appointing 
them  to  positions  in  which  they  could  appropriate  much  of  the 
sequestrated  property.  The  treatment  of  the  prisoners  was  most 
brutal,  and  when  his  colleague,  Inquisitor  Villart,  who  was  not 
wholly  devoid  of  compassion,  was  overheard  remonstrating  with 
him  and  saying  that  the  death  of  the  captives  would  be  on  their 
souls.  Bravo  told  him  to  hold  his  peace,  for  he  who  had  placed 
him  there  desired  that  they  should  all  die  off,  one  by  one.  The 
petitioners  were  quite  willing  to  be  remitted  to  the  tribunal  of 
Seville  or  to  have  judges  who  would  punish  the  guilty  and  dis- 
charge the  innocent,  but  they  earnestly  begged,  by  the  Passion 
of  Christ,  that  they  should  not  be  left  to  the  mercy  of  Inquisitor- 
general  Deza.  Orders,  they  said,  had  been  given  to  him  to 
mitigate  in  some  degree  the  sufferings  of  the  people  of  Jaen, 
which  he  suppressed  and  replaced  with  instructions  to  execute 
justice.  What  this  meant  we  may  gather  from  a  last  despairing 
appeal,  by  the  friends  of  the  prisoners  of  Jaen,  to  Queen  Juana; 
a  junta  of  lawyers,  they  said,  had  been  assembled,  a  scaffold  of 
immense  proportions  was  under  construction;  their  only  hope 
was  in  her  and  they  entreated  her  to  order  that  no  auto  de  fe 
be  held  until  impartial  persons  should  ascertain  the  truth  as  to 
the  miserable  captives.^  Juana  was  in  no  condition  to  respond 
to  this  agonized  prayer,  and  we  may  safely  assume  that  greed 
and   cruelty   claimed   their  victims.     These  glimpses  into   the 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  43. 
^  Ibidem,  fol.  44,  45. 


214  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

methods  of  the  tribunals  elucidate  the  statements  of  the  Capitan 
Avora  as  to  the  desolation  spread  over  the  land  by  the  Inqui- 
sition. 

It  would  seem  that  these  fearful  abuses  were  creating  a  general 
feeling  of  hostility  to  the  institution  and  its  officials,  for  Ferdinand 
deemed  it  necessary  to  issue  a  proclamation,  January  19,  1510, 
calling  upon  all  officials,  gentlemen  and  good  citizens  to  furnish 
inquisitors  and  their  subordinates  with  lodgings  and  suppfies  at 
current  prices  and  not  to  maltreat  or  assail  them,  under  penalty 
of  50,000  maravedis  and  punishment  at  the  royal  discretion. 
A  month  later,  February  22d,  we  find  him  writing  to  the  constable 
of  Castile  that  inquisitors  are  to  visit  the  districts  of  Burgos 
and  Calahorra,  and  he  asks  the  constable  to  give  orders  that  they 
may  not  be  impeded.  Somewhat  similar  instructions  he  gave 
in  March  to  the  provisor  and  corregidor  of  Cuenca,  when  the 
inquisitors  of  Cartagena  were  preparing  to  visit  that  portion  of 
their  district,  as  though  these  special  interpositions  of  the  royal 
power  were  requisite  to  ensure  their  comfort  and  safety  in  the 
discharge  of  their  regular  duties.  Even  these  were  sometimes 
ineffectual  as  was  experienced,  in  1515,  by  the  inquisitor  Paradinas 
of  Cartagena,  who,  while  riding  on  his  mule  in  the  streets  of 
Murcia,  was  set  upon,  stabbed  and  would  have  been  killed  but 
for  assistance,  while  the  assassins  escaped,  calling  forth  from 
Ferdinand  the  most  emphatic  orders  for  their  arrest  and  trial.^ 

Yet,  however  rudely  the  Inquisition  may  have  been  shaken, 
it  was  too  firmly  rooted  in  the  convictions  of  the  period  and  too 
energetically  supported  by  Ferdinand  to  be  either  destroyed  or 
essentially  reformed.  When  he  died,  January  23,  1516,  his 
testament,  executed  the  day  previous,  laid  strenuous  injunctions 
on  his  grandson  and  successor  Charles  V — "As  all  other  virtues  are 
nothing  without  faith,  by  which  and  in  which  we  are  saved,  we 
command  the  said  illustrious  prince,  our  grandson,  to  be  always 
zealous  in  defending  and  exalting  the  Catholic  faith  and  that  he 
aid,  defend  and  favor  the  Church  of  God  and  labor,  with  all  his 
strength,  to  destroy  and  extirpate  heresy  from  our  kingdoms 
and  lordships,  selecting  and  appointing  throughout  them  ministers, 
God-fearing  and  of  good  conscience,  who  will  conduct  the  Inqui- 
sition justly  and  properly,  for  the  service  of  God  and  the  exalta- 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  47,  49,  63,  70,  329,  407. 


Chap.  IV]  XIMENES  ATTEMPTS  REFORM  215 

tion  of  the  Catholic  faith,  and  who  will  also  have  great  zeal  for 
the  destruction  of  the  sect  of  Mahomet."^ 

With  his  death,  during  the  absence  of  his  successor,  the 
governing  power  was  lodged  in  the  hands  of  Inquisitor-general 
Ximenes.  From  the  papal  brief  of  August  18,  1509,  alluded  to 
above  (p.  178),  we  may  infer  that  he  had  already  endeavored  to 
efiect  a  partial  reform,  by  dismissing  some  of  the  more  obnoxious 
inquisitors,  and  he  now  made  use  of  his  authority  to  strike  at 
those  who  had  hitherto  been  beyond  his  reach.  Aguirre  was  one 
of  these  and  another  was  the  mercenary  Calcena,  concerning 
whom  he  wrote  to  Charles,  December,  1516,  that  it  was  necessary 
that  they  should  in  future  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Inquisition 
in  view  of  their  foul  excesses.  Another  removal,  of  which  we 
chance  to  have  cognizance,  was  that  of  Juan  Ortiz  de  Zarate, 
the  secretary  of  the  Suprema.  Whatever  were  the  failings  of 
the  inflexible  Ximenes,  pecuniary  corruption  was  abhorrent  to 
him  and,  during  the  short  term  of  his  supremacy  in  Castile,  we 
may  feel  assured  that  he  showed  no  mercy  to  those  who  sought 
to  coin  into  money  the  blood  of  the  Conversos.^  With  his  death, 
however,  came  a  speedy  return  to  the  bad  old  ways.  Adrian  of 
Utrecht,  though  well-intentioned,  was  weak  and  confiding. 
When  appointed  Inquisitor-general  of  Aragon,  he  had  made 
Calcena,  February  12,  1517,  secretary  of  that  Suprema  and, 
after  the  death  of  Ximenes  we  find  Calcena  acting,  in  1518,  as 
royal  secretary  of  the  reunited  Inquisition,  a  position  which  he 
shared  with  Ugo  de  Urries,  Lord  of  Ayerbe,  another  appointee 
of  Adrian's,  who  long  retained  that  position  under  Charles  V. 
Aguirre  had  the  same  good  fortune,  having  been  appointed  by 
Adrian  to  membership  in  the  Suprema  of  Aragon  and  resuming 
his  position  in  the  reunited  Inquisition  after  the  death  of  Ximenes. 
His  name  occurs  as  signed  to  documents  as  late  as  1546,  when 
he  seems  to  be  the  senior  member.^ 

Ferdinand's  dying  exhortation  to  his  grandson  was  needed. 
Charles  V,  a  youth  of  seventeen,  was  as  clay  in  the  hands  of 
the  potter,  surrounded  by  grasping  Flemish  favorites,  whose  sole 
object,  as  far  as  concerned  Spain,  was  to  sell  their  influence  to 


^  Mariana,  Hist,  de  Espana,  T.  IX,  Append,  p.  Ivi  (Valencia,  1796). 

^  Gomesii  de  Rebus  Fr.  Ximenii,  fol.  173.— Cartas  de  Jimenez,  p.  190  (Madrid, 
1867). 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  448;  Libro  4,  fol.  143,  152; 
Libro  9,  -passim;  Libro  926,  fol.  76,  166;  Libro  940,  fol.  59. 


216  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

the  highest  bidder.  During  the  interval  before  his  coming  to 
take  possession  of  his  new  dominions,  he  fluctuated  in  accordance 
with  the  pressure  which  happened  momentarily  to  be  strongest. 
The  Spaniards  who  came  to  his  court  gave  fearful  accounts  of 
the  Inquisition,  which  they  said  was  ruining  Spain,  and  we  are 
told  that  his  counsellors  were  mostly  Conversos  who  had  obtained 
their  positions  by  purchase.^  In  his  prologue  to  his  subsequent 
abortive  project  of  reform,  Charles  says  that  while  in  Flanders 
he  received  many  complaints  about  the  Inquisition,  which  he 
submitted  to  famous  men  of  learning  and  to  colleges  and  uni- 
versities, and  his  proposed  action  was  in  accordance  with  their 
advice.^  Ximenes  was  alive  to  the  danger  and  it  was  doubtless 
by  his  impulsion  that  the  Council  of  Castile  wrote  to  Charles 
that  the  peace  of  the  kingdom  and  the  maintenance  of  his 
authority  depended  on  his  support  of  the  Inquisition.^  A  more 
adroit  manoeuvre  was  the  advantage  which  he  took  of  the  death, 
June  1,  1516,  of  Bishop  Mercader,  Inquisitor-general  of  Aragon. 
It  would  probably  not  have  been  difficult  for  him  to  have  re- 
united the  Inquisitions  of  the  two  crowns  under  his  own  headship, 
but  he  took  the  more  politic  course  of  urging  Charles  to  nominate 
his  old  tutor,  Adrian  of  Utrecht,  then  in  Spain,  as  his  repre- 
sentative, and  to  secure  for  him  the  succession  to  Mercader's 
see  of  Tortosa.  Charles  willingly  followed  the  advice;  July  30th 
he  replied  that  in  accordance  with  it  he  had  written  to  Rome 
for  the  commission;  November  14th  Pope  Leo  commissioned 
Adrian  as  Inquisitor-general  of  Aragon,  and  we  shall  see  here- 
after how  complete  was  the  ascendancy  which  he  exercised  over 
Charles  in  favor  of  the  Holy  Office.^ 

Meanwhile  Charles  continued  to  vacillate.  At  one  time  he 
proposed  to  banish  from  his  court  all  those  of  Jewish  blood,  and 
sent  a  list  of  names  in  cypher  with  instructions  to  report  their 
genealogies,  to  which  the  Suprema  of  Aragon  replied,  October 
27,  1516,  with  part  of  the  information,  promising  to  furnish  the 
rest  and  expressing  great  gratification  at  his  promises  of  aid  and 
support  in  all  things.^    Then  there  came  a  rumor  that  he  proposed 

^  Bergenroth,  Spanish  State  Papers,  II,  281. — Cartas  de  los  Secretaries  de 
Cisneros,  p.  209  (Madrid,  1876). 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  13,  fol.  68. 
'  Ibidem,  Libro  21,  fol.   111. 

*  Llorente,  Anales,  II,  94. — Cartas  del  Cardenal  Jimenez,  p.  115. — Gachard, 
Correspon dance  de  Charles-Quint  avee  Adrian  VI,  p.  235  (Bnixelles    1859). 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  921,  fol.  38. 


Chap.  IV]  COMPLAINTS  OF  THE  CORTES  217 

to  abolish  the  suppression  of  the  names  of  witnesses,  which  was 
one  of  the  crowning  atrocities  of  inquisitorial  procedure.  For 
this  there  must  have  been  some  foundation  for,  March  11,  1517, 
Ximenes  sent  to  his  secretary  Ayala  a  commission  as  procurator 
of  the  Inquisition  at  Charles's  court,  with  full  power  to  resist 
any  attempt  to  restrict  or  impede  it,  and  he  followed  this,  March 
17th,  with  a  letter  to  Charles,  more  vigorous  than  courtly,  telling 
him  that  such  a  measure  would  be  the  destruction  of  the  Inqui- 
sition and  would  cover  his  name  with  infamy;  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  when  in  straits  for  money  during  the  war  with  Granada, 
had  refused  1,200,000  ducats  for  such  a  concession,  and  Ferdinand 
had  subsequently  rejected  an  offer  of  400,000.^ 

It  can  readily  be  imagined  that,  in  spite  of  the  character  of 
Ximenes,  the  death  of  FercUnand  and  the  uncertainty  as  to  the 
views  of  the  distant  sovereign  had  sensibly  diminished  the  awe 
felt  for  the  Inquisition.  There  is  an  indication  of  this  in  a  com- 
plaint made  by  the  Suprema,  in  September,  1517,  that,  when  it 
moved  with  the  court  from  place  to  place,  the  alcaldes  of  the 
palace  refused  to  furnish  mules  and  wagons  to  transport  its 
books  and  papers  and  personnel,  or,  at  most,  only  did  so  after 
all  the  other  departments  of  the  government  had  been  supplied.^ 
There  is  significance  also  in  a  tumult  occurring  in  Orihuela,  in 
1517,  when  the  inquisitors  of  Cartagena  made  a  visitation  there, 
obhging  the  Licenciado  Salvatierra  to  invoke  the  royal  inter- 
vention.^ The  Conversos,  though  decimated  and  impoverished, 
still  had  money  and  influence  and  the  abuses  which  Ximenes 
had  not  been  able  to  eradicate  still  excited  hostihty.  When 
Charles,  after  his  arrival  in  Spain,  in  September,  1517,  held  his 
first  Cortes  at  Valladolid  in  1518,  the  deputies  petitioned  him  to 
take  such  order  that  justice  should  be  done  by  the  Inquisition, 
so  that  the  wicked  alone  should  be  punished  and  the  innocent 
not  suffer;  that  the  canons  and  the  common  law  should  be 
observed;  that  the  inquisitors  should  be  of  gentle  blood,  of  good 
conscience  and  repute  and  of  the  age  required  by  law,  and, 
finally,  that  episcopal  Ordinaries  should  be  judges  in  conformity 
with  justice/  Although  drawn  in  general  terms  this  formal 
complaint  indicates  that  the  people  felt  the  Holy  Office  to  be 
an  engine  of  oppression,  for  the  furtherance  of  the  private  ends 

»  Ibidem,  Libro  4,  fol.  95;  Libro  921,  fol.  46. 

2  Ibidem,  Libro  5,  fol.  17.  ^  Ibidem,  Libro  10,  foL  50. 

*  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  IV,  272. 


218  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

of  the  officials,  to  the  cUsregard  of  law  and  justice.  Charles  made 
reply  that  he  would  consult  learned  and  saintly  men,  with  whose 
advice  he  would  so  provide  that  injustice  should  cease  and 
meanwhile  he  would  receive  memorials  as  to  abuses  and  projects 
of  reform.  The  deputies  made  haste  to  give  him  ample  informa- 
tion as  to  the  tribulations  of  his  subjects  and  the  injury  resulting 
to  his  dominions,  and  the  outcome  of  the  consultations  of  his 
advisers  was  a  series  of  instructions  to  the  officials  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion which,  if  carried  into  effect,  would  have  deprived  the  Holy 
Office  of  much  of  its  efficiency  for  persecution  as  well  as  of  its 
capacity  for  injustice.  Peter  Martyr  tells  us  that  the  New 
Christians,  to  procure  this,  gave  to  the  high  chancellor,  Jean  le 
Sauvage,  who  was  a  thoroughly  corrupt  man,  ten  thousand 
ducats  in  hand,  with  a  promise  of  ten  thousand  more  when  it 
should  go  into  effect,  but  that,  fortunately  for  the  Inquisition, 
he  fell  sick  towards  the  end  of  May  and  died  early  in  July.^  The 
Instructions  had  been  finally  engrossed  and  lacked  only  the 
signatures;  they  were  drawn  in  the  names  of  Charles  and  Juana 
and  were  addressed  not  only  to  the  officials  of  the  Inquisition 
but  to  those  of  the  state  and  secular  justice,  but  nothing  more 
was  heard  of  them,  for  the  new  chancellor,  Mercurino  di  Gat- 
tinara,  was  a  man  of  different  stamp,  and  Charles  as  yet  was 
swayed  by  the  influences  surrounding  him.  The  elaborate 
project  is  therefore  of  no  interest  except  as  an  acknowledgement, 
in  its  provisions  for  procedure,  of  the  iniquity  of  the  inquisitorial 
process  as  we  shall  see  it  hereafter,  and,  in  its  prohibitory  clauses, 
that  existing  abuses  exaggerated  in  every  way  the  capacity  for 
evil  of  the  system  as  practised.  Thus  it  prohibited  that  the 
salaries  of  the  inquisitors  should  be  dependent  on  the  confisca- 
tions and  fines  which  they  pronounced,  or  that  grants  should  be 
made  to  them  from  confiscated  property  or  benefices  of  those 
whom  they  condemned,  or  that  sequestrated  property  should  be 
granted  away  before  the  condemnation  of  its  owners;  that 
inquisitors  and  officials  abusing  their  positions  should  be  merely 
transferred  to  other  places  instead  of  being  duly  punished;  that 
those  who  complained  of  the  tribunals  should  be  arrested  and 
maltreated;  that  those  who  appealed  to  the  Suprema  should  be 

^  Pet.  Mart.  Epistt.,  620,  622. 

Las  Casas  however  gives  to  le  Sauvage  the  highest  character  for  intelHgence 
and  rectitude.  He  also  speaks  highly  of  Gattinara. — Hist,  de  las  Indias,  Lib.  Ill, 
cap.  99,  103,  130  (Coleccion  de  Documentos,  LXV,  366,  388;  LXVI,  35). 


Chap.  IV]  OFFERS  OF  THE  NEW  CHRISTIANS  219 

maltreated;  that  inquisitors  should  give  information  to  those 
seeking  grants  as  to  the  property  of  prisoners  still  under  trial; 
that  prisoners  under  trial  should  be  debarred  from  hearing  mass 
and  receiving  the  sacraments;  that  those  condemned  to  perpetual 
prison  should  be  allowed  to  die  of  starvation/  The  general  tenor 
of  these  provisions  indicate  clearly  what  a  tremendous  stimulus 
to  persecution  and  injustice  was  confiscation  as  a  punishment 
of  heresy,  how  the  whole  business  of  the  Inquisition  was  degraded 
from  its  ostensible  purpose  of  purifying  the  faith  into  a  vile 
system  of  spoliation,  and  how  those  engaged  in  it  were  inevitably 
vitiated  by  the  tempting  opportunity  of  filthy  gains. 

Although  Charles,  on  the  death  of  his  chancellor,  dropped  the 
proposed  reform,  he  seems  to  have  recognized  the  existence  of 
these  evils.  When  his  Inquisitor-general,  Cardinal  Adrian,  was 
elevated  to  the  papacy  in  1522,  he  sent  from  Flanders  his 
chamberlain  La  Chaulx  to  congratulate  him  before  he  should 
leave  Spain,  and  among  the  envoy's  instructions  was  the  sug- 
gestion that  he  should  be  careful  in  his  appointments  and  pro- 
vide proper  means  to  prevent  the  Inquisition  from  punishing  the 
innocent  and  its  officials  from  thinking  more  about  the  property 
of  the  condemned  than  the  salvation  of  their  souls — a  pious 
wish  but  perfectly  futile  so  long  as  the  methods  of  the  institution 
were  unchanged,  and  its  expenses  were  to  be  met  and  its  officials 
enriched  by  fines  and  confiscations.^ 

The  sufferers  had  long  recognized  this  and  offers  had  more  than 
once  been  vainly  made  to  Ferdinand  to  compound  for  the  royal 
right  of  confiscation — offers  of  which  we  know  no  details.  With 
the  failure  of  the  comprehensive  scheme  of  reform,  this  plan  was 
revived  and,  before  Charles  left  Spain,  May  21,  1520,  to  assume 
the  title  of  King  of  the  Romans,  a  formal  proposition  was  made 
to  him  to  the  effect  that  if  justice  should  be  secured  in  the  Inquisi- 
tion, by  appointing  judges  free  from  suspicion  who  should  observe 
the  law,  so  that  the  innocent  might  live  secure  and  the  wicked 
be  punished  and  the  papal  ordinances  be  obeyed,  there  were 
persons  who  would  dare  to  serve  him  as  follows.  Considering 
that  greed  is  the  parent  of  all  evils;  that  it  is  the  law  of  the 
Partidas  that  the  property  of  those  having  Cathohc  children 
should  not  be  confiscated^  and  further  that  the  royal  treasury 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  13,  fol.  68-73. 

2  C.  V.  Hofler,  Papst  Adrian  VI,  p.  144  (Wien,  1880). 

^  This  it  rather  assumed  than  expressed  in  Part,  vii,  Tit.  xxvi,  ley  3 


220  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQ  VISITION  [Book  I 

derived  very  little  profit  from  the  confiscations,  as  they  were  all, 
consumed  in  the  salaries  and  costs  of  the  judges  and  receivers 
who  enriched  themselves,  his  Majesty  could  well  benefit  himself 
by  a  composition  and  sale  of  all  his  rights  therein,  for  himself  and 
his  descendants  for  ever,  obtaining  from  the  pope  a  bull  prohibit- 
ing confiscations  and  pecuniary  penances  and  fines.  If  this 
were  done  the  parties  pledged  themselves  to  provide  rents 
sufficient,  with  those  that  Ferdinand  had  assigned  towards  that 
purpose,  to  defray  all  the  salaries  and  costs  of  the  Inquisition, 
on  a  basis  to  be  defined  by  Charles.  Moreover,  they  would  pay 
him  four  hundred  thousand  ducats — one  hundred  thousand  before 
his  departure  and  the  balance  in  three  equal  annual  payments 
at  the  fair  of  Antwerp  in  May.  Or,  if  he  preferred  not  to  do 
this  in  perpetuity,  he  could  limit  the  term,  for  wliich  two  hundred 
thousand  ducats  would  be  paid,  in  similar  four  instalments.  For 
the  collection  of  the  sum  to  meet  these  engagements  there  must 
be  letters  and  provisions  such  as  the  Catholic  king  gave  for  the 
compositions  of  Andalusia,  and  it  must  be  committed  in  Castile 
to  the  Archbishop  of  Toledo  (Cardinal  de  Croy),  and  in  Aragon 
to  the  Archbishop  of  Saragossa  (Alfonso  de  Aragon)  from  whose 
decisions  there  was  to  be  no  appeal.  But  to  furnish  the  necessary 
personal  security  for  the  fulfilment  of  this  offer,  it  was  significantly 
added  that  it  would  be  necessary  for  the  king  and  Cardinal 
Adrian  to  give  safe-conducts  to  the  parties,  protecting  them 
from  prosecution  by  the  Inquisition  and  these  must  be  issued 
in  the  current  month  of  October  so  that  there  might  be  time  to 
raise  the  money .^  It  is  scarce  necessary  to  say  that  this  propo- 
sition was  unsuccessful.  Charles  was  under  the  influence  of 
Cardinal  Adrian  and  Adrian  was  controlled  by  his  colleagues. 
It  was  asking  too  much  of  inquisitors  that  they  should  agree  to 
allow  themselves  to  be  restricted  to  the  impartial  administration 
of  the  cruel  laws  against  heresy,  to  be  content  with  salaries  and 
forego  the  opportunities  of  peculation.  It  was  also  in  vain  that 
the  Cortes  of  Coruila,  in  1520,  repeated  the  request  of  those  of 
Valladolid  for  a  reform  in  procedure.^  Charles  sailed  for  Flanders 
leaving  his  subjects  exposed  to  all  the  evils  under  which  they 
had  groaned  so  long.     There  were  still  occasional  ebullitions  of 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  49.    See 
Appendix. 

'  Colmeiro,  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos  de  Leon  y  Castilla,  II,  110  (Madrid, 

1884). 


Chap.  IV]  OFFERS  OF  THE  NEW  CHRISTIANS  221 

resistance  for,  in  1520,  when  the  tribunal  of  Cuenca  arrested 
the  deputy  corregidor  it  gave  rise  to  serious  troubles  and  Inquis- 
itor Mariano  of  Toledo  was  despatched  thither  with  his  servants 
and  familiars  to  restore  peace,  a  task  which  occupied  him  for 
five  months/ 

A  still  further  project  for  mitigating  the  rigors  of  the  Inquisition 
was  laid  before  Charles  in  1520,  apparently  after  his  arrival  in 
Flanders.  This  proposed  no  payment,  but  suggested  that  the 
expenses  should  be  defrayed  by  the  crown,  which  should  wholly 
withdraw  the  confiscations  from  the  control  of  the  inquisitors. 
With  this  were  connected  various  reforms  in  procedure — reveal- 
ing the  names  of  witnesses,  allowing  the  accused  to  select  his 
advocate  and  to  see  his  friends  and  family  in  presence  of  the 
gaoler,  the  punishment  of  false  witness  by  the  talio,  the  support 
of  wife  and  children  during  the  trial  from  the  sequestrated 
property  and  some  others.^  There  would  seem  also,  about  1522, 
to  have  been  a  further  offer  to  Charles  of  seven  hundred  thousand 
ducats  for  the  abandonment  of  confiscation,  but  it  does  not 
appear  what  conditions  accompanied  it.^  It  was  all  useless. 
The  grasp  of  the  Inquisition  on  Spain  was  too  firm  and  its  routine 
too  well  established  for  modification. 

In  the  revolt  of  the  Comunidades,  which  followed  the  departure 
of  Charles,  the  affairs  of  the  Inquisition  had  no  participation. 
Some  ten  years  later,  however,  in  1531,  the  tribunal  of  Toledo 
came  upon  traces  of  an  attempt  to  turn  the  popular  movement 
to  account  in  removing  one  of  the  atrocities  of  inquisitorial 
procedure.  The  treasurer,  Alfonso  Gutierrez,  is  said  to  have 
spent  in  Rome  some  twelve  thousand  ducats  in  procuring  a 
papal  brief  which  removed  the  seal  of  secrecy  from  prisons  and 
witnesses.  He  endeavored  to  secure  for  his  scheme  the  favor  of 
Juan  de  Padilla,  the  popular  leader,  by  a  loan  of  eight  hundred 
ducats  on  the  pledge  of  a  gold  chain,  but  Padilla,  while  accepting 
the  loan,  prudently  refused  to  jeopardize  his  cause  by  arousing 
inquisitorial  hostility.* 

What  Gutierrez  failed  to  obtain  was  sought  for  again  from 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  5,  fol.  24. 

'  From  the  Brussels  Archives  de  I'Etat,  Registre  sur  le  faict  des  heresies  et  in- 
quisiteurs,  fol.  652.    Kindly  communicated  to  me  by  Professor  Paul  Fredericq. 
^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  35. 

*  BibHoteca  piiblica  de  Toledo,  Sala  5,  Estante  11,  Tabla  3. — See  also  Padre 
Fidel  Fita  in  Boletin,  XXXIII,  307. 


222  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQ  UISITION  [Book  I 

Charles  V  in  1526.  About  this  time  commenced  the  efforts  to 
subject  the  Moriscos  of  Granada  to  the  Holy  Office  and  apparently 
in  preparation  for  this  Granada  was  separated  from  Cordova 
and  was  favored  with  a  tribunal  of  its  own,  transferred  thither 
from  Jaen.  The  frightened  inhabitants  made  haste  to  petition 
Charles  to  do  away  with  the  secrecy  which  was  so  peculiarly 
provocative  of  abuses.  They  pointed  out  that  a  judge,  if  Ucen- 
tiously  disposed,  had  ample  opportunity  to  work  his  will  with 
the  maidens  and  wives  brought  before  him  as  prisoners  and  even 
with  those  merely  summoned  to  appear,  whose  terror  betrayed 
that  they  would  dare  to  offer  no  resistance.  In  the  same  way 
the  notaries  and  other  subordinates,  who  were  frequently  un- 
married men,  had  every  advantage  with  the  wives  and  daughters 
of  the  prisoners,  eagerly  seeking  to  obtain  some  news  of  the 
accused,  immured  incomunicado  in  the  secret  prison,  from  which 
no  word  could  escape,  and  ready,  in  their  despairing  anxiety,  to 
make  any  sacrifice  to  learn  his  fate.  Or,  if  the  officials  preferred, 
they  could  sell  information  for  money  and  all  this  was  so  gener- 
ally understood  that  these  positions  were  sought  by  evil-minded 
men  in  order  to  gratify  their  propensities.  Bad  as  was  this,  still 
worse  was  the  suppression  of  the  witnesses'  names  in  procuring 
the  conviction  of  the  innocent  while  facilitating  the  escape  of 
the  guilty.  The  memorial  assumes,  what  was  practically  the 
fact,  that  the  only  defence  of  the  accused  lay  in  guessing  the 
names  of  the  adverse  witnesses  and  discrediting  and  disabling 
them  for  mortal  enmity,  and  it  pointed  out  how,  in  diverse 
ways,  this  facilitated  miscarriage  of  justice.  It  did  not  confine 
itself  to  argument,  however,  but  added  that  the  little  kingdom 
of  Granada  would  pay  fifty  thousand  ducats  for  the  removal 
of  secrecy  from  the  procedure  and  prisons  of  the  Inquisition, 
and  that  a  very  large  sum  could  be  thus  obtained  from  the 
other  provinces  of  Spain.^  The  only  possible  answer  to  the 
reasoning  of  the  memorial  was  that  the  faith  would  suffer  by 
any  change,  but  this  always  sufficed  and  the  Inquisition  con- 
tinued to  shroud  its  acts  in  the  impenetrable  darkness  which 
served  to  cover  up  iniquity  and  give  ample  scope  for  injustice. 

When   Charles  had   returned   to   Spain   and  again   held   the 
Cortes  at  Valladolid,  in   1523,  they  repeated   the  petitions   of 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  55. — See 
Appendix. 


Chap.  IV]  NAVABRE  223 

1518  and  1520,  adding  that  nothing  had  been  done.  They  further 
suggested  that  inquisitors  should  be  paid  salaries  by  the  king 
and  not  draw  their  pay  from  the  proceeds  of  their  functions, 
and  that  false  witnesses  should  be  punished  in  accordance  with 
the  Laws  of  Toro.  This  shows  that  the  old  abuses  were  felt 
as  acutely  as  ever,  but  Charles  merely  rephed  that  he  had  asked 
the  pope  to  commission  as  inquisitor-general  the  Archbishop  of 
Seville,  Manrique,  whom  he  had  especially  charged  to  see  that 
justice  was  properly  administered.  Again,  in  1525,  the  Cortes 
of  Toledo  complained  of  the  excesses  of  the  inquisitors  and  the 
disorders  committed  by  the  familiars  and  asked  that  the  secular 
judges  might  be  empowered  to  restrain  abuses,  but  they  obtained 
only  a  vague  promise  that,  if  abuses  existed,  he  would  have 
them  corrected/  It  required  no  httle  courage  for  deputies  to 
arraign  the  Inquisition  pubHcly  in  the  Cortes,  and  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  hardihood  to  do  so  disappeared  with  the 
recognition  of  the  fruitlessness  of  remonstrance. 

Thus  all  efforts  proved  futile  to  mitigate  or  ameliorate  inquisi- 
torial methods,  and  the  Holy  Office,  in  its  existing  form,  was 
firmly  established  in  Castile  for  three  centuries  momentous  to 
the  Spanish  people. 


NAVARRE. 


When  Ferdinand,  in  1512,  made  the  easy  conquest  of  Navarre 
he  presumably  no  longer  had  hope  of  issue  by  his  Queen  Ger- 
maine,  to  whom  he  could  leave  the  kingdoms  of  his  crown  of 
Aragon.  To  avoid,  therefore,  for  the  new  territory  the  Hmita- 
tions  on  sovereignty  imposed  by  the  Aragonese  fueros,  in  the 
Cortes  of  Burgos,  in  1515,  he  caused  Navarre  to  be  incorporated 
with  the  crown  of  Castile.^  Its  Inquisition  thus  finally  became 
Castilian,  although  at  first  it  was  scarce  more  than  a  branch  of 
that  of  Saragossa. 

When  the  Castilian  invaders  under  the  Duke  of  Alva  occupied 


^  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  IV,  381,  415. 
^  Mariana,  Hist,  de  Espana,  Lib.  xxx,  cap.  xxiv.— Galindez  Carvajal,  Memo- 
rial, ann.  1515  (Col.  de  Doc.  XVIII,  336) 


224  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

Pampeluna  they  found  there  the  Dominican  friar,  Antonio  de 
Maya,  armed  with  a  commission  as  inquisitor,  issued  by  his 
provincial  and  confirmed  by  the  pope.  The  office  had  doubtless 
been  a  sinecure  under  the  House  of  Albret,  but  the  transfer  of 
the  land  to  the  Catholic  king  gave  promise  of  its  future  useful- 
ness, for  the  little  kingdom  had  served  as  an  asylum  for  refugees 
from  the  rest  of  Spain.  The  good  fraile  lost  no  time  in  obtaining 
from  Alva  permission  to  exercise  his  office  and  in  despatching 
an  envoy  to  Ferdinand  at  Logrofio  to  secure  the  royal  confirma- 
tion and  suggest  the  necessity  of  appointing  a  staff  of  salaried 
officials.  Besides,  the  episcopal  vicar-general  of  Pampeluna 
was  seeking  to  exercise  the  office,  and  the  king  was  asked  to 
order  him  not  to  interfere.  Ferdinand,  with  his  usual  caution, 
wrote  on  September  30,  1512,  to  the  Duke  of  Alva,  as  captain- 
general,  and  to  the  Bishop  of  Majorca  as  governor,  expressing 
his  earnest  desire  to  forward  the  good  work  and  desiring  infor- 
mation as  to  the  character  of  Maya ;  meanwhile,  if  the  inquisitors 
of  Saragossa  sent  to  claim  fugitives,  they  were  to  be  promptly 
surrendered. 

No  further  action  was  taken  for  a  year,  during  which  Fray 
Maya  did  what  he  could  in  the  absence  of  assistance.  At  length 
a  royal  letter  of  September  26,  1513,  to  the  Marquis  of  Comares, 
lieutenant  and  captain-general,  announced  that  Inquisitor- 
general  Mercader  had  appointed  as  inquisitors  Francisco  Gon- 
zalez de  Fresneda,  one  of  the  inquisitors  of  Saragossa,  and  Fray 
Antonio  de  Maya,  to  whom  the  customary  oath  of  obedience 
was  to  be  taken;  the  only  other  official  designated  was  Jaime 
Julian,  as  escribano  de  secuestras,  with  a  salary  of  2500  sueldos. 
Further  delays,  however,  occurred  and,  on  December  21st,  the 
king  wrote  to  Fresneda  to  lose  no  time  in  going  to  Pampeluna 
with  his  officials,  where  he  would  find  Maya  awaiting  him.  On 
the  24th  a  proclamation  announced  that  Leo  X  had  ordered 
the  continuance  of  the  Inquisition  in  all  the  kingdoms  of  Spain 
and  especially  in  that  of  Navarre,  wherefore  in  order  that  dread 
of  loss  of  property  might  not  deter  those  conscious  of  guilt  from 
coming  forward  and  confessing,  the  king  granted  release  from 
confiscation  to  all  who  would  confess  and  apply  for  recon- 
ciliation within  the  Term  of  Grace  of  thirty  days  which  the 
inquisitors  would  announce.  As  a  preparation  for  those  who 
should  disregard  this  mercy,  already,  on  the  22d,  Martin  Adrian 
had  been  commissioned  to  the  important  office  of  receiver  of 


Chap.  IV]  NAVARRE  225 

the  confiscations  which  were  expected  to  supply  the  funds  for 
the  machinery  of  persecution  and,  on  January  1,  1514,  he  was 
empowered  to  pay  himself  a  salary  of  6000  sueldos  and  one  of 
3000  to  Fray  Maya.  As  nothing  is  said  about  the  salaries  of  the 
other  officials,  they  presumably  were  carried  on  the  pay-roll  of 
the  tribunal  of  Saragossa.  The  process  of  manning  the  new 
Inquisition  was  conducted  with  great  deliberation.  It  was  not 
until  July  13,  1514,  that  receiver  Adrian  was  informed  that 
Bishop  Mercader  had  appointed  Juan  de  Villena  as  fiscal,  or 
prosecuting  officer,  to  whom  a  salary  of  2500  sueldos  was  to  be 
paid.  The  close  connection  of  the  tribunal  of  Pampeluna  with 
that  of  Aragon  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  Adrian  was  also  notary 
of  the  Inquisition  of  Calatayud  and  continued  in  service  there 
for  which  he  received  his  accustomed  salary.  Juan  de  Miades, 
also,  the  alguazil  of  Saragossa,  was  put  in  charge  of  the  prison 
at  Pampeluna,  for  which  he  was  allowed  an  additional  salary  of 
500  sueldos,  until,  October  15,  1515,  Bernardino  del  Campo, 
of  Saragossa,  was  appointed  gaoler  at  Pampeluna  with  a  salary  of 
500  sueldos.  We  also  hear  of  Miguel  Daoyz,  notary  del  secreto 
of  Saragossa  acting  for  the  Inquisition  of  Pampeluna.  This 
may  partly  be  attributable  to  Ferdinand's  poUcy,  as  expressed, 
March  23,  1514,  in  a  letter  to  the  Marquis  of  Comares,  that  the 
officials  must  not  be  Navarrese,  for  he  had  elsewhere  experienced 
the  disadvantage  of  employing  natives.  More  urgent,  however, 
was  the  pressure  of  economy,  for  the  Pampeluna  Inquisition 
had  apparently  little  to  do ;  Navarre  had  never  had  a  population 
of  Moors  and  Jews  comparable  to  that  of  the  southern  kingdoms 
and  the  refugees  there  doubtless  hastened  their  departure  as 
soon  as  the  shadow  of  the  Inquisition  spread  over  the  land, 
although  one  of  the  earliest  orders  of  Ferdinand  to  Comares, 
December  21,  1513,  had  been  to  place  guards  secretly  at  all 
ports  and  passes  to  prevent  their  escape.  How  little  material 
existed  for  the  Holy  Office  is  manifested  by  the  fact  that  the 
confiscations  did  not  pay  the  very  moderate  expenses  and  in 
May,  1515,  it  was  necessary  to  transfer  from  Valencia  two 
hundred  ducats  to  enable  Martin  Adrian  to  meet  the  necessary 
charges.  In  September,  1514,  we  find  the  inquisitors  making 
a  visitation  of  their  district  and,  in  the  following  month.  Fray 
Maya  returned  to  the  seclusion  of  his  convent,  but  of  the  actual 
work  of  the  tribunal  we  hear  Uttle.  It  is  true  that  a  letter  of 
the  Suprema,  October  11,  1516,  respecting  the  collection  of  a 

15 


226  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  INQUISITION  [Book  I 

penance  of  300  ducats  imposed  on  Miguel  de  Sant  Jaime  shows 
that  occasionally  a  lucrative  prize  was  secured,  but  chances  of 
this  kind  must  have  been  few  for,  in  1521,  Cardinal  Adrian,  in  view 
of  the  necessities  of  the  tribunal,  ruthlessly  cut  down  the  salaries 
of  all  the  officials.  Its  authority  cannot  have  been  well  assured 
for,  in  1518,  the  Viceroy,  Duke  of  Najera,  expresses  doubts 
whether  a  sentence  of  sanbenitos,  pronounced  on  Rodrigo  de 
Osca  and  his  wife,  of  Pampeluna,  can  be  enforced,  in  view  of 
their  numerous  kindred,  to  which  the  Suprema  replies  by  instruct- 
ing him  to  see  that  nothing  is  allowed  to  impede  it.  Little  as 
it  had  to  do,  the  business  of  the  tribunal  was  delayed  by  its 
imperfect  organization.  In  1519  eight  citizens  of  Pampeluna 
complained  to  the  Suprema  that,  for  trifling  causes,  their  fathers 
and  mothers,  wives  and  brothers,  were  in  the  prison  of  the 
Inquisition,  where  three  of  them  had  died  and  the  rest  were 
sick.  They  had  been  detained  for  seven  or  eight  months,  although 
their  cases  were  finished,  awaiting  consuUores  from  Saragossa 
to  vote  on  them,  wherefore  the  petitioners  asked  that  decisions 
be  reached  without  further  delay  and  that,  when  discharged,  the 
prisoners  should  not  be  ruined  by  pecuniary  penances  greater  than 
their  substance,  as  had  occurred  on  previous  occasions.  The 
Suprema,  January  12, 1519,  forwarded  this  petition  to  the  inquisi- 
tors with  instructions  that,  within  fifteen  days,  one  of  them  should 
bring  to  Saragossa  all  the  cases  concluded,  to  be  duly  voted  on, 
while  the  remainder  were  to  be  finished  as  soon  as  possible  and 
within  fifteen  days  thereafter  to  be  similarly  brought  to  Saragossa 
for  decision.  As  in  this  letter  the  Council  describes  itself  as 
entrusted  with  the  business  of  the  Inquisition  in  all  the  kingdoms 
and  lordships  of  the  crown  of  Aragon  and  Navarre,  it  shows 
that  the  latter  still  remained  subject  to  the  section  of  the  Suprema 
pertaining  to  Aragon. 

While  the  tribunal  of  Pampeluna  was  thus  of  little  service 
for  its  ostensible  objects,  it  was  turned  to  account  politically 
in  the  perturbations  which  followed  the  death  of  Ferdinand, 
January  23,  1516.  Jean  d'Albret,  supported  by  France,  natu- 
rally made  an  effort  to  recover  his  dominions,  but  his  ineffective 
siege  of  Saint-Jean-Pied-du-Port,  and  the  defeat  and  capture  of 
the  Marshal  of  Navarre  at  Roncesvalles,  speedily  put  an  end  to 
the  invasion.  It  was  important  for  the  Spanish  government 
to  ascertain  the  extent  to  which  assistance  had  been  pledged  to 
him   by  his   former   subjects.     The   Inquisition  was   unpopular 


Chap.  IV]  NAVABBE  227 

among  them  and  would  undoubtedly  have  been  overthrown  had 
d'Albret  succeeded,  so  that  an  investigation  into  those  con- 
cerned in  the  movement  could  come  within  an  elastic  definition 
of  its  functions,  while  its  methods  fitted  it  admirably  to  obtain 
the  information  desired.  Accordingly  a  cedula  of  April  21,  1516, 
instructed  the  inquisitors  to  spare  no  effort,  in  every  way,  to 
discover  the  names  of  those  engaged  in  the  affair  and  to  obtain 
all  the  information  they  could  about  the  whole  matter.  This 
probably  did  not  increase  the  popularity  of  the  Holy  Office  and 
the  French  invasion  of  1521  offered  an  opportunity,  which  was 
not  neglected,  of  expressing  in  action  the  hostility  of  the  people. 
After  the  expulsion  of  the  enemy,  reprisals  were  in  order  which 
Cardinal  Adrian  committed  to  the  Precentor  of  Tudela.  Appar- 
ently he  was  not  sufficiently  vigorous  in  the  work  for,  in  1523, 
we  find  the  Suprema  stimulating  him  to  greater  activity.^ 

Spanish  domination  being  thus  assured,  the  Navarrese  tribunal 
became  useful  chiefly  as  a  precaution  to  prevent  the  subject 
kingdom  from  continuing  to  be  an  asylum  for  heretics.  It  had 
been  shifted  from  Pampeluna  to  Estella  and  thence  to  Tudela, 
where,  in  1518,  the  Suprema  instructs  the  inquisitors  to  find  a 
suitable  building,  in  order  to  relieve  the  monastery  of  San  Fran- 
cisco in  which  the  tribunal  was  temporarily  lodged.  Some  years 
later  there  was  talk  of  returning  it  to  Pampeluna,  but  finally  it 
was  recognized  as  having  a  district  inadequate  to  its  support, 
while  the  monarchy  felt  itself  strong  enough  to  disregard  the 
old  boundaries  of  nationahty.  At  some  time  prior  to  1540, 
Calahorra,  with  a  portion  of  Old  Castile,  was  detached  from  the 
enormous  district  of  Valladohd  and  was  made  the  seat  of  a 
tribunal  of  which  the  jurisdiction  extended  over  Navarre  and 
Biscay.  About  1570  this  was  transferred  to  Logrono,  on  the 
boundary  between  Old  Castile  and  Navarre,  and  there  it  re- 
mained, as  we  shall  have  occasion  to  see,  until  the  dissolution 
of  the  Holv  Office.^ 


»  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inqiiisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  199,  200,  256,  259,  263,  267, 
268,  271,  299,  311,  337,  339,  341,  344,  348,  352,  353,  354,  368,  392,  438,  449; 
Libro  72,  P.  1,  fol.  49,  P.  2,  fol.  47;  Libro  73,  fol.  193,  276;  Libro  74,  fol.  116; 
Libro  75,  fol.  6. 

'  Ibid.  Libro  72,  P.  2,  fol.  116;  Libro  73,  fol.  142,  247-8;  Libro  78,  fol.  216, 
226,  285;  Libro  82,  fol.  5. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON. 

The  Crown  of  Aragon  comprised  the  so-called  kingdoms  of 
Aragon  and  Valencia,  the  principality  of  Catalonia,  the  counties 
of  Rosellon  and  Cerdana,  and  the  Balearic  Isles,  with  the  out- 
lying dependencies  of  Sicily,  Sardinia  and  Corsica.  Although 
marriage  had  united  the  sovereigns  of  Castile  and  Aragon,  the 
particularism  born  of  centuries  of  rivalry  and  frequent  war  kept 
the  lands  jealously  apart  as  separate  nations  and  Ferdinand  ruled 
individually  his  ancestral  dominions.  What  had  been  accom- 
plished in  Castile  for  the  Inquisition  had  therefore  no  effect  across 
the  border  and  the  extension  of  the  Spanish  organization  there 
was  complicated  by  the  character  of  the  local  institutions  and  the 
fact  that  the  papal  Inquisition  was  already  in  existence  there 
since  its  foundation  in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

Aragon  had  not  undergone  the  dissolving  process  of  Castilian 
anarchy  which  enabled  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  to  build  up  an 
absolute  monarchy  on  the  ruins  of  feudalism.  Its  ancient  rights 
and  liberties  had  been  somewhat  curtailed  during  the  tyrannical 
reigns  of  Ferdinand  of  Antequera  and  his  successors,  but  enough 
remained  to  render  the  royal  power  nominal  rather  than  real  and 
the  people  were  fiercely  jealous  of  their  independence.  The  Cortes 
were  really  representative  bodies  which  insisted  upon  the  redress 
of  grievances  before  voting  supplies  and,  if  we  may  believe  the 
Venetian  envoy,  Giovanni  Soranzo,  in  1565,  the  ancient  formula 
of  the  oath  of  allegiance  was  still  in  use:  "We,  who  are  as  good 
as  you,  swear  to  you  who  are  no  better  than  we,  as  to  the  prince 
and  heir  of  our  kingdom,  on  condition  that  you  preserve  our 
liberty  and  laws  and  if  you  do  otherwise  we  do  not  swear  to  you."^ 

•  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  85. 

This  is  virtually  the  same  as  the  formula  ejiven  by  Antonio  Perez  in  his  Rela- 
ciones,  written  in  1598:  "  Nos  que  valemos  tanto  como  vos  os  hazemos  nuestro 
Rey  y  Senor  con  tal  que  nos  guardeys  nuestros  fueros  y  libertades  y  sino  No !" 
(Obras,  Ed.  1654,  p.  163).  The  learned  Javier  de  Quinto  (Discursos  polfticos, 
Madrid,  1848)  had  not  seen  Soranzo's  statement  when  he  proved  that  this 
formula  was  invented  by  Hotman  in  his  Franco  Gallia,  first  printed  in  1573.    On 

(229) 


230  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON  [Book  I 

In  dealing  with  a  people  whose  liberties  were  so  extensive  and 
whose  jealousy  as  to  their  maintenance  was  so  sensitive,  Ferdi- 
nand was  far  too  shrewd  to  provoke  opposition  by  the  abrupt 
introduction  of  the  Inquisition  such  as  he  had  forced  upon  Cas- 
tile. His  first  endeavor  naturally  was  to  utilize  the  institution 
as  it  had  so  long  existed.  This,  although  founded  as  early  as 
1238,  had  sunk  into  a  condition  almost  dormant  in  the  spiritual 
lethargy  of  the  century  preceding  the  Reformation,  and  in  Aragon, 
as  in  the  rest  of  Europe,  it  appeared  to  be  on  the  point  of  extinc- 
tion. It  is  true  that,  in  1474,  Sixtus  IV  had  ordered  Fra  Leonardo, 
the  Dominican  General,  to  fill  all  the  tribunals  of  the  Holy  Office 
and  he  had  complied  by  appointing  Fray  Juan  as  Inquisitor  of 
Aragon,  Fray  Jaime  for  Valencia,  Fray  Juan  for  Barcelona  and 
Fray  Francisco  Vital  for  Catalonia,  but  we  have  no  record  of  their 
activity.^  So  little  importance,  indeed,  was  attached  to  the 
functions  of  the  Inquisition  that  in  Valencia,  where  in  1480 
the  Dominicans  Cristobal  de  Gualbes  and  Juan  Orts  were  inquisi- 
tors, they  held  faculties  enabling  them  to  act  without  the  con- 
currence of  the  episcopal  representative — an  unexampled  privilege, 
only  explicable  on  the  assumption  that  the  archbishop  declined 
to  be  troubled  with  matters  so  trivial.  The  archbishop  at  the 
time  was  Cardinal  Rodrigo  Borgia,  papal  vice-chancellor,  better 
known  as  Alexander  VI,  who  speedily  woke  up  to  the  speculative 
value  of  his  episcopal  jurisdiction  over  heresy,  when  the  fierce 
persecution,  which  arose  in  Andalusia  in  January,  1481,  with  its 
attendant  harvest  of  fines  and  compositions,  showed  that  a 
similar  prospect  might  be  anticipated  in  his  own  province. 
Accordingly  a  brief  of  Sixtus  IV,  December  4,  1481,  addressed 
to  the  inquisitors,  withdrew  their  faculties  of  independent  action 
and  went  to  the  other  extreme  by  directing  them  in  future  to  do 
nothing  without  the  concurrence  of  the  vicar-general,  Mateo 
Mercader,  senior  archdeacon  of  Valencia.^ 

the  other  hand  there  is  nothing  of  the  kind  in  the  oath  of  allegiance  taken  to 
Charles  V  in  1518,  though  he  was  obliged  first  to  swear  to  observe  the  fuerog 
and  privileges  of  the  land. — Argensola,  Anales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  i,  cap.  Ix. 

A  good  account  of  the  ancient  constitution  of  Aragon  will  be  found  in  Swift's 
"Life  and  Times  of  James  the  First,  King  of  Aragon,"  London,  1894. 

'  Monteiro,  Historia  da  Santa  Inquisi9ao,  II,  340. 

2  Archivio  Vaticano,  Sisto  IV,  Registro  674,  T.  XV,  fol.  13. 

Even  in  the  dormant  condition  of  the  Inquisition,  there  must  have  been  some 
opportunities  rendering  the  office  of  inquisitor  desirable.  A  brief  of  Sixtus  IV, 
Jan.  21,  1479  (Ripoll,  III,  .572),  to  the  Dominican  General,  recites  that  his  prede- 


Chap.  V]  REVIVAL  OF  OLD  INQUISITION  231 

In  reviving  and  stimulating  to  activity  this  papal  institution, 
Ferdinand  was  fully  resolved  to  have  it  subjected  to  the  crown  as 
completely  as  in  Castile.  Hitherto  it  had  been  a  Dominican 
province,  with  inquisitors  holding  office  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
Dominican  authorities  and  his  first  step  therefore  was  to  procure, 
in  1481,  from  the  Dominican  General,  Salvo  Caseta,  a  commission 
to  Fray  Caspar  Juglar  to  appoint  and  dismiss  inquisitors  at  the 
royal  will  and  pleasure/  This  gave  him  control  over  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  Inquisition,  but  to  render  it  completely  dependent 
and  at  the  same  time  efficient,  it  was  necessary  that  the  appoint- 
ees should  be  well  paid  and  that  the  pay  should  come  from  the 
royal  treasury.  A  hundred  years  earlier,  Eymerich,  the  Inquisi- 
tor of  Aragon,  had  sorrowfully  recorded  that  princes  were  unwill- 
ing to  defray  the  expenses,  because  there  were  no  rich  heretics 
left  whose  confiscations  excited  their  cupidity;  the  Church  was 
equally  disinclined,  so  that,  in  the  absence  of  regular  financial 
support,  the  good  work  languished.^  Now,  however,  greed  and 
fanaticism  joined  hands  at  the  prospect  of  wealthy  Conversos  to 
be  punished  and  Ferdinand,  by  a  rescript  of  February  17,  1482, 
provided  ample  salaries  for  the  manning  of  the  tribunal  of  Valen- 
cia, with  all  the  necessary  officials.^    We  may  reasonably  assume 

cesser  had  appointed,  some  years  previously,  Jaime  Borell  as  inquisitor  of 
Valencia,  who  had  recently  been  removed  without  cause  by  Miguel  de  Mariello, 
Provincial  of  Aragon,  and  replaced  by  Juan  Marques.  Sixtus  now  orders  Marques 
ejected  and  Borell  restored.  Neither  of  these  names  appear  in  the  documents  of 
the  period. 

*  Archivo  general  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Registro  3684,  fol.  7,  8. 
'  Eymeric.     Direct.  Inquis.  P.  Ill,  Q.  cviii. 

'  Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  9.  This  quaint  document  shows  us 
the  primitive  organization  of  a  tribunal  and  the  salaries  regarded  as  ample. 
There  are  apparently  two  clerical  errors  which  balance  each  other,  in  the  salaries 
of  the  inquisitors  and  scrivener. 

"La  forma  infra  sequent  es  la  voluntat  nostra  ques  tenga  en  la  solucio  e  paga 
dels  salaris  dels  officials  e  treliallants  en  la  officio  de  la  Inquisicio. 
E   primerament  A  cascu  dels  inquisidors  que  son  dos, 

cent  quaranta  lliures  cascun  any  que  sumen  . 
Item  d  un  bon  jurista  que  sia  advocat  dels  inquisidors 

e  advocat  fiscal,  cinquanta  lliures  lanj'' 
Item  al  procurador  fiscal  vint  e  cinch  lliures  lany 
Item  al  scriva  de  la  inquisicio  doscentes  lliures  lany 
Item  al  alguacil  et  al  sag  cent  e  vint  lliures 
Item  al  porter  que  va  citant  vint  lliures  lany 
Item  A  Dominguez  que  reeb  los  actos  de  las  confiscacions 
Que   sumen   tots  les  dits  quantitats  sex  cent   vint    lliures  moneda  reals  de 


CLXXX 

Urs. 

L 

Urs. 

XXV 

llrs. 

cc 

Urs. 

cxx 

llrs. 

XX 

llrs. 

XXV 

Urs. 

232  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

that  he  commenced  there  in  the  anticipation  of  meeting  less 
obstinate  resistance  than  in  the  older  and  stronger  provinces  of 
Aragon  and  Catalonia.  He  was,  however,  not  yet  fully  satisfied 
with  his  control  over  appointments  and  he  applied  to  Sixtus  IV 
for  some  larger  liberty,  but  the  pope,  who  was  beginning  to  recog- 
nize that  the  Castilian  Inquisition  was  more  royal  than  papal, 
refused,  by  a  brief  of  January  29,  1482,  alleging  that  to  do  so 
would  be  to  inflict  disgrace  on  the  Dominicans  to  whom  it  had 
always  been  confided/ 

The  reorganized  tribunal  speedily  produced  an  impression  by 
its  activity.  The  Conversos  became  thoroughly  alarmed ;  opposi- 
tion began  to  manifest  itself,  while  the  more  timid  sought  safety 
in  flight.  A  certain  Mossen  Luis  Masquo,  one  of  the  jurats  of 
Valencia,  made  himself  especially  conspicuous  in  exciting  the 
city  against  the  inquisitors  and  in  stimulating  united  action  in 
opposition  by  the  Estates  of  the  kingdom.  A  letter  to  him  from 
Ferdinand,  February  8,  1482,  censures  him  severely  for  this  and 
vaguely  threatens  him  with  the  royal  wrath  for  persistence. 
Another  letter  of  the  same  date  to  the  Maestre  Racional,  or  chief 
accounting  officer  of  the  kingdom,  shows  that  the  severity  with 
which  the  property  of  those  arrested  was  seized  and  sequestrated 
was  arousing  indignation,  for  it  explains  the  necessity  of  this  so 
that  not  a  diner  shall  be  lost ;  if  the  inquisitors  have  not  power  to 
do  this,  it  shall  be  conferred  on  them.^  The  Maestre  Racional 
had  suggested  that  for  those  who  should  spontaneously  come  for- 
ward and  confess  a  form  of  abjuration  and  reconciliation  might  be 
adopted  which  should  spare  them  the  humiliation  of  public 
penance  while  still  keeping  them  subject  to  the  penalties  of 
relapse.  To  this,  after  consultation  with  learned  canonists,  Ferdi- 
nand assented  and  sent  him  the  formula  agreed  upon,  with 
instructions  that  it  should  appear  to  be  the  act  of  the  local 
authorities  and  not  his — doubtless  to  prevent  his  Castilian  sub- 
jects from  claiming  the  same  exemption  from  the  humiliating 
penitential  processions  in  the  autos  de  fe.^ 

Allusions  in  this  correspondence  to  special  cases  of  arrests  and 

Valencia,  los  quals  e  no  mas  es  nostra  voluntat  que  en  la  forma  dessus  dita  se 
paguen  a  les  sobredits  persones.     Dada  en  la  vila  de  Medina  del  Campo  d  xvii 
dias  de  febrer  del  any  de  la  nativitat  de  nostro  senyor  MCCCCLXXXII.     Yo  el 
Rey.  Dominus  Rex  mandavit  mihi  Petro  Camanyas." 
*  Printed  by  Llorente,  Hist.  crit.  Append.  1. 

2  Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  3,  4. 

3  Ibidem,  fol.  1,  2,  4,  5. 


Chap.  V]  PAPAL  INTERFERENCE  233 

fugitives  and  sequestrations  show  that  Ferdinand  was  succeeding 
in  moulding  the  old  Inquisition  as  he  desired  and  that  it  was 
actively  at  work,  when  suddenly  a  halt  was  called.  In  the  general 
terror  it  is  presumable  that  the  Conversos  had  recourse  to  the 
Holy  See  and  furnished  the  necessary  convincing  arguments;  it 
may  also  be  conjectured  that  Sixtus  was  disposed,  by  throwing 
obstacles  in  the  way,  to  secure  the  recognition  of  his  profitable 
but  disputed  right  to  entertain  appeals  and  that  he  was  unwilling, 
without  a  struggle,  to  lose  control  of  the  Inquisition  of  Aragon 
as  he  had  done  with  that  of  Castile.  There  are  traces  also  of  the 
hand  of  Cardinal  Borgia  seeking  to  recover  his  episcopal  juris- 
diction over  heresy  in  Valencia.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
impelling  cause,  the  first  move  of  Sixtus  was  to  cause  the  Domin- 
ican General,  Salvo  Caseta,  to  withdraw  the  commission  given 
to  Fray  Caspar  Juglar  to  appoint  inquisitors  at  Ferdinand's 
dictation.  At  this  the  royal  wrath  exploded  in  a  letter  to  the 
General,  April  26,  1482,  threatening  the  whole  Order  with  the 
consequences  of  his  displeasure ;  Gualbes  and  Orts  had  done  their 
duty  fearlessly  and  incorruptibly,  while  Fray  Francisco  Vital — 
appointed  to  Catalonia  by  the  Dominican  General — had  been 
taking  bribes  and  had  been  banished  the  kingdom;  he  will 
never  allow  inquisitors  to  act,  except  at  his  pleasure;  even  with 
the  royal  favor  they  can  accomplish  little  in  the  face  of  popular 
opposition  and  without  it  they  can  do  nothing;  meanwhile 
Gualbes  and  Orts  will  continue  to  act.  This  heated  epistle  was 
followed.  May  11th,  by  one  in  a  calmer  mood,  asking  that  Juglar's 
commission  be  renewed  or  another  one  be  issued,  failing  which  he 
would  obtain  papal  authority  and  overslaugh  the  Dominican 
Order.^ 

The  nextmoye  by  Sixtus  was  the  issue,  April  18,  1482,  of 
the  most  extraordinary  bull  in  the  history  of  the  Inquisition — 
extraordinary  because,  for  the  first  time,  heresy  was  declared  to 
be,  like  any  other  crime,  entitled  to  a  fair  trial  and  simple  justice. 
We  shall  have  abundant  opportunity  to  see  hereafter  how  the 
inquisitorial  system,  observed  since  its  foundation  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  presumed  the  guilt  of  the  accused  on  any  kind 
of  so-called  evidence  and  was  solely  framed  to  extort  a  confession 
by  depriving  him  of  the  legitimate  means  of  defence  and  by  the 
free  use  of  torture.  It  was  also  an  invariable  rule  that  sacramental 
confession  of  heresy  was  good  only  in  the  forum  of  conscience  and 

1  Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  7,  8. 


234 


THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 


was  no  bar  to  subsequent  prosecution.  There  was  brazen  assurance 
therefore  in_Sixtus;s  complaining  that,  for  some  time,  the  inquis- . 
itors  of  Aragon  had  been  moved  not  by  zeal  for  the  faith  but  by 
cupidity ;  that  many  faithful  Christians,  on  the  evidence  of  slaves, 
enemies  and  unfit  witnesses,  without  legitimate  proofs,  had  been 
thrust  into  secular  prisons,  tortured  and  condemned  as  heretics, 
their  property  confiscated  and  their  persons  relaxed  to  the  secular 
arm  for  execution.  In  view  of  the  numerous  complaints  reaching 
him  of  this,  he  ordered  that  in  future  the  episcopal  vicars  should 
in  all  cases  be  called  in  to  act  with  the  inquisitors;  that  the  names 
and  evidence  of  accusers  and  witnesses  should  be  communicated 
to  the  accused,  who  should  be  allowed  counsel  and  that  the  evi- 
dence for  the  defence  and  all  legitimate  exceptions  should  be 
freely  admitted;  that  imprisonment  should  be  in  the  episcopal 
gaols;  that  for  all  oppression  there  should  be  free  appeal  to  the 
Holy  See,  with  suspension  of  proceedings,  under  pain  of  excom- 
munication removable  only  by  the  pope.  Moreover,  all  who  had 
been  guilty  of  heresy  should  be  permitted  to  confess  secretly  to 
the  inquisitors  or  episcopal  officials,  who  were  required  to  hear 
them  promptly  and  confer  absolution,  good  in  both  the  forum  of 
conscience  and  that  of  justice,  without  abjuration,  on  their  accept- 
ing secret  penance,  after  which  they  could  no  longer  be  prose- 
cuted for  any  previous  acts,  a  certificate  being  given  to  them  in 
which  the  sins  confessed  were  not  to  be  mentioned,  nor  were  they 
to  be  vexed  or  molested  thereafter  in  any  way — and  all  this  under 
similar  pain  of  excommunication.  The  bull  was  ordered  to  be 
read  in  all  churches  and  the  names  of  those  incurring  censure 
under  it  were  to  be  published  and  the  censures  enforced  if  neces- 
sary by  invocation  of  the  secular  arm;  while  finally  all  proceed- 
ings in  contravention  of  these  provisions  were  declared  to  be  null 
and  void,  all  exceptions  from  excommunication  were  withdrawn 
and  all  conflicting  papal  decrees  were  set  aside.^  It  is  evident 
that  the  Conversos  had  a  hand  in  framing  this  measure  and  they 
could  scarce  have  asked  for  anything  more  favorable.  In  fact 
Ferdinand  in  December,  1482,  writes  to  Luis  Cabanilles,  Governor 
of  Valencia,  that  he  learns  that  Gonsalvo  de  Gonsalvo  Royz  was 
concerned  in  procuring  the  bull  for  the  Conversos :  he  is  therefore 

»  Archivio  Vaticano:  Sisto  IV,  Regestro  674,  T.  XV,  fol.  366. 

As  Llorente  states  (Hist.  crft.  Append,  n.  2)  that  the  contents  of  this  bull  are 
unknown  and  as  ignorance  of  its  purport  has  wholly  misled  him,  I  give  it  in  the 
Appendix. 


Chap.  V]  PAPAL  INTERFERENCE  235 

to  be  arrested  at  once  and  is  not  to  be  released  without  a  royal 
order,  while  Luis  de  Santangel,  the  royal  escribano  de  radon,  will 
convey  orally  the  king's  intentions  concerning  him/ 

In  this  elaborate  and  carefully  planned  decree  Sixtus  formally 
threw  down  the  gage  of  battle  to  Ferdinand  and  announced  that 
he  must  be  placated  in  some  way  if  the  Inquisition  of  Aragon 
was  to  be  allowed  to  perform  its  intended  functions.    That  it  was 
simply  a  tactical  move— rendered  doubly  advantageous  by  liberal 
Converso  payment— and  that  he  is  to  be  credited  with  no  humani- 
tarian motives,  is  sufficiently  evident  from  his  subsequent  action 
and  also  from  the  fact  that  the  bull  was  limited  to  Aragon  and 
in  no  way  interfered  with  the  Castilian  tribunals.     Ferdinand 
promptly  accepted  the  challenge.    He  did  not  await  the  publica- 
tion of  the  bull  but  addressed,  on  May  13th,  a  haughty  and 
imperative  letter  to  Sixtus.     He  had  heard,  he  said,  that  such 
concessions  had  been  made,  which  he  briefly  condensed  in  a 
manner  to  show  that  his  information  was  accurate,  and  further 
that  the  inquisitors  Gualbes  and  Orts  had  been  removed,  at  the 
instance  of  the  New  Christians  who  hoped  for  more  pliable  suc- 
cessors.    He  refused  to  beheve  that  the  pope  could  have  made 
grants  so  at  variance  with  his  duty  but,  if  he  had  thus  yielded  to 
the  cunning  persuasions  of  the  New  Christians,  he,  the  king,  did 
not  intend  ever  to  allow  them  to  take  effect.     If  anything  had 
been  conceded  it  must  be  revoked;  the  management  of  the  Inqui- 
sition must  be  left  to  him ;  he  must  have  the  appointment  of  the 
inquisitors,  as  only  through  his  favor  could  they  adequately  per- 
form their  functions;  it  was  through  lack  of  this  royal  power  that 
they  had  hitherto  been  corrupted  and  had  allowed  heresy  to 
spread.    He  therefore  asked  Sixtus  to  confirm  Gualbes  and  Orts 
and  the  commission  to  Caspar  Juglar,  or  to  give  a  similar  com- 
mission to  some  other  Dominican,  for  he  would  permit  no  one  to 
exercise  the  office  in  his  dominions  except  at  his  pleasure.^ 

Sixtus__seems._to  have  allowed  five  months  to  elapse  before 
answering  this  defiance,  but  in  the  meanwhile  the  Inquisition 
went  on  as  before.    Ferdinand  had  formed  in  Valencia  a  special 

'  Archive  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  9. — It  is  significant  that  in  the 
papal  register  there  is  a  note  appended  to  this  bull  "  Duplicata  sub  eadem  data 
et  scripta  per  eundem  scriptorem  et  taxata  ad  xxx"  [grossos?],  showing  that  an 
authentic  copy  was  obtained  and  paid  for  at  the  time  by  some  one,  doubtless  to 
provide  against  accident  or  fraud. 

^  Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  7.  See  Appendix.  Bergenroth 
(Calendar  of  Spanish  State  Papers,  I,  xliv)  gives  an  incorrect  extract  from  it. 


236  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

council  for  the  Holy  Office  and  this  body  ventured  to  remonstrate 
with  him  about  the  confiscations  and  especially  the  feature  of 
sequestration,  by  which,  as  soon  as  an  arrest  was  made,  the  whole 
property  of  the  accused  was  seized  and  held;  this  was  peculiarly 
oppressive  and  the  council  represented  that  it  violated  the  fueros 
granted  by  King  Jaime  and  King  Alfonso,  but  Ferdinand  replied, 
September  11th,  that  he  was  resolved  that  notliing  belonging  to 
him  should  be  lost  but  should  be  rigidly  collected,  while  what 
belonged  to  others  should  not  be  taken.  Another  letter  of  Sep- 
tember 6th  to  the  Governor  Luis  Cabanilles  refers  to  an  arrange- 
ment of  a  kind  that  became  frequent,  under  which  the  Conversos 
agreed  to  pay  a  certain  sum  as  a  composition  for  the  confiscations 
of  those  who  might  be  proved  to  be  heretics.^ 

At  length,  on  October  9th,  Sixtus  replied  to  Ferdinand  in  a  man- 
ner to  show  that  he  was  open  to  accommodation.  The  new  rules, 
he  said,  had  been  drawn  up  with  the  advice  of  the  cardinals  de- 
puted for  the  purpose ;  they  had  scattered  in  fear  of  the  impending 
pestilence  but,  when  they  should  return  to  Rome,  he  would  charge 
them  to  consider  maturely  whether  the  bull  should  be  amended; 
meanwhile  he  suspended  it  in  so  far  as  it  contravened  the  common 
law,  only  charging  the  inquisitors  to  observe  strictly  the  rules  of 
the  common  law — the  "common  law"  here  being  an  elastic 
expression,  certain  to  be  construed  as  the  traditional  inquisitorial 
system.^  Thus  the  unfortunate  Conversos  of  Aragon,  as  we  shall 
see  hereafter  were  those  of  Castile,  were  merely  used  as  pawns  in 
the  pitiless  game  of  king  and  pope  over  their  despoilment  and 
the  merciful  prescriptions  of  the  bull  of  April  18th  were  only  of 
service  in  showing  that,  in  his  subsequent  policy,  Sixtus  sinned 
against  light  and  knowledge.  What  negotiations  followed,  the 
documents  at  hand  fail  to  reveal,  but  an  understanding  was 
inevitable  as  soon  as  the  two  powers  could  agree  upon  a  division 
of  the  spoil.  It  required  a  twelvemonth  to  effect  this  and  in  the 
settlement  Ferdinand  secured  more  than  he  had  at  first  demanded. 
It  was  no  longer  a  question  of  commissioning  a  fraile  to  appoint 
inquisitors  at  his  pleasure,  but  of  including  in  the  organization  of 
the  Castilian  Inquisition  the  whole  of  the  Spanish  dominions. 
On  October  17, 1483,  the  agreement  wasjatified  by  a  bull  appoint- 
ing Torquemada  as  inquisitor  of  Aragon,  Valencia  and  Catalonia, 
with  power  to  appoint  subordinates.    In  this,  with  characteristic 

*  Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  8,  9. 

^  Llorente,  Hist.  crit.  Append,  n.  2.— Fidel  Fita  (Boletin,  XV,  467). 


Chap.  V]  CRISTOBAL  GUALBES  237 

shamelessness,  Sixtus  declares  that  he  is  only  discharging  his  duty 
as  pope,  while  his  tender  care  for  the  reputation  of  the  Dominicans 
is  manifested  by  his  omitting  to  prescribe  that  the  local  inquisitors 
should  be  members  of  that  Order,  the  only  quaUfication  required 
being  that  they  should  be  masters  in  theology.^ 

During  the  interval,  prior  to  this  extension  of  Torquemada's 
jurisdiction,  there  was  an  incident  showing  that  Sixtus  had 
yielded  the  appointment  of  inquisitors,  while  endeavoring  to 
retain  the  power  of  dismissing  them.  Cristobal  Gualbes,  who  was 
acting  in  Valencia  to  the  entu'e  satisfaction  of  Ferdinand,  became 
involved  in  a  bitter  quarrel  with  the  Archdeacon  Mercader  for 
whom,  as  we  have  seen.  Cardinal  Borgia  had  obtained  a  papal 
brief,  virtually  constituting  him  an  indispensable  member  of  the 
tribunal— a  power  which  he  doubtless  used  speculatively  to  the 
profit  of  Borgia  andhimself.  It  is  to  the  interference  of  Gualbes 
with  these  worthies  that  we  may  reasonably  attribute  the  action 
of  Sixtus,  who  wrote.  May  25,  1483,  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
that  the  misdeeds  of  Gualbes  merited  heavy  punishment,  but  he 
contented  himself  with  removing  him  and  asked  them  to  fill  his 
place  with  some  fitting  person  on  whom  he  in  advance  conferred 
the  necessary  powers.  He  evidently  felt  doubtful  as  to  their 
acquiescence,  for  he  wrote  on  the  same  day  to  Inigo  Archbishop 
of  Seville,  asking  him  to  use  his  influence  to  induce  the  sovereigns 
to  concur  in  this.^  Ferdinand  was  not  inchned  to  abandon 
Gualbes  for,  in  a  letter  of  August  8th,  he  orders  the  Maestre 
Racional  of  Valencia  to  pay  to  ''  lo  devot  religios  maestre  Gualbes" 
forty  libras  to  defray  his  expenses  in  coming  to  the  king  at  Cor- 
dova and  in  order  that  he  might  without  delay  return  to  work.^ 
In  the  final  settlement  however  Gualbes  was  sacrificed,  for  when 

^  Ripoll,  III,  622.— WTien  Innocent  VIII,  by  letters  of  February  11,  1486, 
confirmed  or  reappointed  Torquemada,  the  qualification  of  his  appointees  was 
modified  by  requiring  them  to  be  fitting  ecclesiastics,  learned  and  God-fearing, 
provided  that  they  were  masters  in  theology  or  doctors  or  licentiates  of  laws  or 
canons  of  cathedrals  or  holding  other  church  dignities. — Paramo,  p.  137. 

Ferdinand,  July  9,  1485,  had  requested  that  the  condition  of  holding  grades 
in  the  church  should  not  be  insisted  upon  for  there  were  few  of  such  who  were 
fitted  for  the  work.— Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  59. 

2  Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  34.— Boletin,  XV,  472.— Bulario  de 
la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I,  fol.  43. 

Zurita  (Anales,  XX,  xlix)  is  e^'idently  in  error  in  stating  that  Ferdinand, 
May  20,  1483,  asked  Sixtus  to  remove  Gualbes  and  Orts. 

3"  Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  11. 


238  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON  [Book  I 

Torquemada  was  made  Inquisitor-general  of  Aragon,  Sixtus 
expressly  forbade  him  from  appointing  that  son  of  iniquity  Cris- 
tobal Gualbes  who,  for  his  demerits,  had  been  interdicted  from 
serving  as  inquisitor.^ 

If  Ferdinand  imagined  that  he  had  overcome  the  resistance  of 
his  subjects  by  placing  them  under  the  Castilian  Inquisition  with 
Torquemada  at  its  head,  he  showed  less  than  his  usual  sagacity. 
They  had  been  restive  under  the  revived  institution  conducted 
by  their  own  people  and  the  intense  particularism  of  the  Aragonese 
could  not  fail  to  arouse  still  stronger  opposition  to  the  prospect 
of  subjection  to  the  domination  of  a  foreigner  such  as  Torquemada, 
whose  sinister  reputation  for  pitiless  zeal  gave  assurance  that  the 
work  would  be  conducted  with  greater  energy  than  ever. 

In  Castile  the  introduction  of  the  Inquisition  had  been  done  by 
the  arbitrary  power  of  the  crown;  in  Aragon  the  consent  of  the 
representatives  of  the  people  was  felt  to  be  necessary  for  the 
change  from  the  old  to  the  new  and  a  meeting  of  the  Cortes  was 
convoked  at  Tarazona  for  January  15,  1484.  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  arrived  there  on  the  19th  and  remained  until  May,  when 
the  opening  of  the  campaign  against  Granada  required  their 
presence  elsewhere.  Torquemada  was  there  ready  to  establish 
the  tribunals;  what  negotiations  were  requisite  we  do  not  know, 
though  we  hear  of  his  consulting  with  persons  of  influence,  and 
an  agreement  was  reached  on  April  14th.  It  was  not  until  May 
7th,  however,  that  Ferdinand  issued  from  Tarazona  a  cedula 
addressed  to  all  the  officials  throughout  his  dominions,  informing 
them  that  with  his  assent  the  pope  had  established  the  Inquisition 
to  repress  the  Judaic  and  Mahometan  heresies  and  ordering  that 

1  Ripoll,  III,  622.— Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I,  fol.  182. 

"When  he  had  no  further  use  for  Gualbes  Ferdinand  also  turned  against  him, 
for  in  March,  1486,  on  hearing  that  Gualbes  proposed  to  visit  a  Dominican  con- 
vent he  wrote  earnestly  to  the  Governor  and  Inquisitor  of  Valencia  to  prevent 
it  as  it  would  be  a  scandal.— Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C,  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  90. 

It  is  possible  that  there  may  have  been  some  rancor  on  Ferdinand's  part  against 
Gualbes  who,  as  an  eloquent  preacher  and  fervid  popular  orator,  had  done  much, 
in  1461,  to  stimulate  the  resistance  of  the  Catalans  to  Juan  II,  after  the  death 
of  the  heir-apparent,  Carlos  Prince  of  Viana,  which  was  attributed  to  poison 
administered  by  Queen  Juana  Henrfquez  to  open  for  her  son  Ferdinand  the  path 
to  the  throne  (Zurita,  Anales,  Lib.  xvii,  cap.  xxvi,  xlii;  Lib.  xviii,  cap.  xxxii). 
It  is  true  that  Zurita  is  not  certain  whether  there  may  not  have  been  two 
Cristobal  Gualbes  (Lib.  xx,  cap.  xlix)  but  BofaruU  y  Broca  (Hist,  de  Cataluna, 
VI,  312)  has  no  such  doubts. 


Chap.  V]  VALENCIA  239 

the  inquisitors  and  their  ministers  should  be  honored  and  assisted 
everywhere  under  pain  of  the  royal  wrath,  of  deprivation  of  office 
and  of  ten  thousand  florins.^ 

Under  the  plenary  powers  of  Torquemada's  commission,  steps 
were  taken  to  reorganize  the  Inquisition  and  adapt  it  to  the  active 
discharge  of  its  duties.  Tribunals  were  to  be  established  perma- 
nently in  Valencia,  Saragossa  and  Barcelona  with  new  men  to 
conduct  them.  Gualbes  was  cUsposed  of  by  the  enmity  of  Sixtus 
IV.  Orts  still  figures  in  an  order  for  the  payment  of  salaries, 
April  24,  1484,  and,  on  May  10th,  Ferdinand,  writing  from  Tara- 
zona,  says  that  he  is  there  and  will  be  sent  to  Saragossa,  but  he 
never  appeared  at  the  latter  place,  though  he  was  not  formally 
removed  from  office  until  February  8,  1486,  by  Innocent  VIII, 
when  he  was  styled  Inquisitor  of  Valencia  and  Lerida.^ 


VALENCIA. 


In  the  Spring  of  1484  Torquemada  appointed,  for  Valencia, 
Fray  Juan  de  Epila  and  Martin  Inigo,  but  the  popular  resistance 
and  effervescence  were  such  that  their  operations  were  greatly 
delayed.  The  jurats,  or  local  authorities,  prevented  the  opening 
of  their  tribunal  and,  by  the  advice  of  Miguel  Dalman,  royal  advo- 
cate fiscal,  presented  an  appeal  to  the  Cortes  of  the  kingdom, 
imploring  their  intervention.  The  Cortes  had  assembled  and  all 
four  hrazos  or  Estates  united  in  remonstrances  against  the  threat- 
ened violation  of  the  fueros  and  privileges  of  the  land  and  threw 
every  impediment  in  the  way  of  the  inquisitors.  All  this  we  learn 
from  a  series  of  letters  despatched,  July  27th,  by  Ferdinand  to  the 
various  officials,  from  the  governor  down,  in  which  he  gives  free 
vent  to  his  wrath  and  indignation,  declaring  his  will  to  be  un- 
changeable, threatening  with  punishment  and  dismissal  all  who 
resist  it  and  pronouncing  as  frivolous  the  argument  that  the 
Inquisition  was  an  invasion  of  the  privileges  of  the  land.  At  the 
same  time  he  wrote  to  the  inquisitors  informing  them  of  his  pro- 
posed measures,  instructing  them  to  perform  their  duties  without 

'   Zurita,  Anales,  Lib.  xx,  cap.  Ivi,  Ixv. 

'  Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  11,  12.— Bulario  de  la  Orden  de 
Santiago,  Lib.  1,  fol.  51. 


240  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON  [Book  I 

fear  and  cautioning  them  to  observe  the  fueros  and  privileges  and 
to  show  clemency  and  mercy,  in  so  far  as  they  could  with  a  good 
conscience,  to  those  who  confessed  their  errors  and  applied  for 
reconciliation/ 

Energetic  and  determined  as  was  the  tone  of  these  letters  they 
produced  no  effect  upon  the  obstinate  Valencians.  The  Cortes 
and  the  city  joined  in  sending  a  deputation  to  the  king  to  remon- 
strate against  the  proposed  violation  of  their  rights.  The  Maestre 
Racional  stood  by  and  did  nothing  to  remove  the  dead-lock. 
Even  the  Royal  Council  of  Valencia  prevented  the  inquisitors 
from  opening  their  tribunal,  on  the  ground  that  they  were  for- 
eigners while,  by  the  fueros,  none  but  natives  could  exercise 
official  functions.  All  this  produced  another  explosion  of  royal 
anger  under  date  of  August  31st.  Ferdinand  roundly  scolded  his 
officials  and  threatened  punishment  proportioned  to  the  gravity 
of  the  offence;  the  reasons  alleged  by  the  envoys  and  the  council 
were  brushed  aside  as  untenable;  he  ordered  the  governor  to  set 
the  inquisitors  at  work,  without  caring  what  the  Cortes  might  do 
or  what  the  people  might  say,  and  he  exhorted  the  inquisitors  to 
lose  no  time  in  performing  their  duties.^  The  struggle  continued 
but  at  length  opposition  was  broken  down  and,  on  November  7, 
1484,  the  inquisitors  were  able  formally  to  assume  their  functions 
by  preaching  their  sermon  de  la  fe  and  publishing  their  edicts. 
Although  they  were  thus  in  shape  to  carry  on  the  business  of  the 
tribunal,  the  usual  solemnities  were  omitted  and  they  did  not 
venture  to  exact,  from  the  secular  and  ecclesiastical  dignitaries, 
the  customary  oaths — all  of  which  Ferdinand  subsequently 
ordered  to  be  performed.^ 

Scarcely  had  the  inquisitors  commenced  operations  when 
Borgia's  representative,  the  Archdeacon  Mateo  Mercader,  was 
the  cause  of  fresh  trouble.  Discord  arose  between  him  and  Juan 
de  Epila  which  threatened  to  have  even  more  serious  results  than 
his  quarrels  with  Gualbes,  which  had  compromised  the  attempt  to 
revive  the  old  Inquisition.  Ferdinand's  patience  was  exhausted 
and  so  serious  did  he  consider  the  situation  that  he  despatched 
his  secretary,  Antonio  Salavert,  to  Valencia  armed  with  peremp- 
tory orders  to  Mercader  and  the  governor.     The  former  was 

*  Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  19-22. 
2  Ibidem,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  25,  26. 

'  Zurita,  Anales,  Lib.  xx,  cap.  Ixv. — Pdramo,  p.  187. — Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de 
A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  34. 


Chap.  V]  VALENCIA  241 

required  to  make  over  his  episcopal  functions  to  Marti  Trigo, 
another  vicar-general,  to  surrender  the  bull  of  December  4,  1481, 
delegating  to  him  inquisitorial  powers,  and  no  longer  to  meddle 
in  any  way  with  the  Holy  Office.  In  case  of  disobedience,  the 
governor  was  instructed,  without  a  moment's  delay,  to  order  him 
under  pain  of  five  thousand  florins,  to  depart  within  twenty-four 
hours  for  the  royal  court  and  to  be  beyond  the  frontier  of  Valencia 
within  six  days;  if  he  failed  in  this  all  his  temporalities  were  to  be 
seized  to  defray  the  fine  and  further  contumacy  was  to  be  met  by 
banishing  him  from  the  kingdom  as  a  disobedient  rebel.  The 
inquisitors  were  also  told  no  longer  to  summon  him  to  their  delib- 
erations and  not  to  allow  him  to  take  part  in  their  action,*  All 
this  was  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  fueros  of  the  land  and  inde- 
pendence of  the  Church  and  shows  what  latitude  Ferdinand 
allowed  himself  when  the  Inquisition  was  concerned.  It  was 
successful  however  and  we  hear  no  more  of  Mercader,  though 
it  was  not  until  February  8,  1486,  that  the  curia  assented  to 
this  arbitrary  illegality  by  withdrawing  his  commission  along 
with  those  of  the  old  inquisitors,^ 

Still,  Valencia  was  not  disposed  to  allow  to  the  Inquisition  the 
untrammelled  exercise  of  its  powers  or  to  render  to  it  the  assist- 
ance required  of  all  the  faithful.  The  nobles  continued  for  some 
months  to  offer  resistance  and  when  this  was  nominally  broken 
down  it  continued  in  a  passive  form.  To  meet  it,  Ferdinand,  in 
a  letter  of  August  17,  1485,  ordered  Mossen  Joan  Carrasquier, 
alguazil  of  the  Inquisition,  at  the  simple  bidding  of  the  inquisitors, 
to  arrest  and  imprison  any  one,  no  matter  how  high  in  station. 
For  this  he  was  not  to  ask  the  concurrence  of  any  secular  author- 
ity, for  the  whole  royal  power  was  committed  to  him  and  all 
officials,  under  pain  of  two  thousand  gold  florins,  and  other 
arbitrary  punishment,  were  required  to  lend  him  active  assistance. 
Even  this  infraction  of  the  royal  oath  to  respect  the  liberties  of 
the  subject  did  not  suffice,  for  another  letter  of  January  23,  1486, 
states  that  the  nobles  continued  to  give  refuge  in  their  lands  to 
fugitives  from  the  Inquisition,  even  to  those  condemned  and  burnt 
in  effigy,  wherefore  they  were  summoned,  under  their  allegiance 
and  a  penalty  of  twenty  thousand  gold  florins,  to  surrender  to  the 
alguazil  all  whom  he  might  designate  and  to  aid  him  in  seizing 
them.    About  the  same  time  Ferdinand  placed  the  royal  palace 

»  Arch.  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  32,  34. 
*  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  i,  fol.  31, 
16 


242  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

of  Valencia  at  the  service  of  the  Inquisition  and  ordered  to  be 
built  in  it  the  necessary  prisons.  His  own  officials  apparently  had 
by  this  time  been  taught  obedience  for  in  March,  1487,  he  writes 
to  the  governor  warmly  praising  their  zeal.^  To  stimulate  this, 
on  July  28,  1487,  he  issued  a  safe-conduct,  taking  under  the  royal 
protection  all  the  officials  of  the  Inquisition,  their  families  and 
goods;  all  royal  officials,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  were 
required,  under  pain  of  five  thousand  florins  and  the  king's  wrath, 
to  assist  them  and  to  arrest  whomsoever  they  might  designate.^ 
Still,  there  were  occasional  ebullitions  of  resistance  which  were 
met  with  prompt  and  effective  measures.  In  1488  the  Lieutenant- 
general  of  the  kingdom  ventured  to  remove  by  force,  from  the 
inquisitorial  prison,  a  certain  Domingo  de  Santa  Cruz,  condemned 
for  heresy,  and  was  at  once  summoned  by  Torquemada  to  answer 
for  his  temerity.  Ferdinand  at  the  same  time  wrote  to  him  severely 
to  come  without  delay  and,  that  the  kingdom  might  not  be  with- 
out a  governor,  sent  him  a  commission  in  blank  to  fill  in  with  the 
name  of  a  deputy  to  act  during  his  absence  or  until  the  king  should 
otherwise  provide;  moreover,  all  who  had  assisted  in  the  removal 
of  the  prisoner  were  to  be  forthwith  arrested  by  the  inquisitors.' 
So,  when  in  1497  the  notaries  of  Valencia  claimed  that  the  notaries 
of  the  Holy  Office  had  no  power  to  certify  documents  concerning 
the  sales  of  confiscated  property  and  other  similar  business  and 
summoned  them  before  the  secular  authorities,  Ferdinand  threat- 
ened them  with  severe  punishment,  besides  the  prosecution  by  the 
inquisition  to  which  they  were  liable  for  impeding  it,  for  it  was 
not  subject  to  any  of  the  laws  or  privileges  of  the  land.  He  also 
wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Segorbe,  his  lieutenant-general,  to  support 
the  Inquisition;  the  fiscal  of  the  Suprema  presented  a  clamosa 
claiming  that  those  guilty  of  this  action  were  excommunicate  and 
liable  to  the  penalties  for  fautorship  of  heresy,  and  the  inquisitor- 
general  forwarded  this  to  them  with  a  summons  to  appear  within 
fifteen  days  and  defend  themselves.^  The  Inquisition  was  so 
sacred  that  a  mere  attempt  to  decide  at  law  a  question  of  business 
was  a  crime  involving  heavy  penalties.  Ferdinand's  sharp 
rebuke,  in  1499,  when  a  case  of  confiscation,  involving  peculiar 


>  Arch  Gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  61,  73,  86,  89,  90. 
'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  688,  fol.  504. 

^  Portocarrero,  Sobre  la  Competencia  de  Jurisdicion,  fol.  64  (Madrid,  1624). 
*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  i. — Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inqui- 
sicion de  Valencia,  Leg.  309,  Notaries,  fel.  1. 


Chap.  V]  ARAGON  243 

hardship,  provoked  the  royal  officials  and  local  magistrates  to 
meet  and  draw  up  a  protest  in  terms  unflattering  to  the  tribunal 
has  already  been  referred  to  (p.  189).  It  was  probably  one 
of  the  results  of  this  that,  on  June  28,  1500,  the  inquisitors 
summoned  all  the  officials  and  the  Diputados  before  them  and, 
when  all  were  assembled,  read  to  them  the  apostolic  letters  and 
those  of  the  king  respecting  the  tribunal  and  its  fees  and  required 
all  present  to  take  the  oath  of  obecUence,  which  was  duly  acceded 
to  without  objections.^  The  unintermitting  pressure  of  the  throne 
was  thus  finally  effective  and,  in  spite  of  its  fueros,  the  little 
kingdom  was  brought  under  the  yoke. 

The  tribunal  had  been  active  and  efficient.  Already,  in  June, 
1488,  a  list  of  those  reconciled  under  the  Edicts  of  Grace  amounted 
to  983  and,  among  these,  no  less  than  a  hundred  women  are 
described  as  the  wives  or  daughters  of  men  who  had  been  burnt. 
Those  included  in  this  enumeration  were  given  assurance  that 
their  property  would  not  be  subject  to  confiscation — unless  it 
had  already  been  sequestrated — and  that  they  could  effect  sales 
and  make  good  titles.  Apparently  inquisitorial  zeal  disregarded 
this  assurance  for  these  penitents  applied  for  and  obtained  its 
confirmation.  May  30, 1491.^  Of  course  they  had  been  subjected  to 
heavy  fines  under  the  guise  of  pecuniary  penance  and  we  can 
readily  imagine  how  large  was  the  sum  thus  contributed  to  the 
coffers  of  the  Inquisition,  to  which  as  yet  these  fines  enured. 


ARAGON. 


The  parent  state  of  Aragon  proper  seemed  at  first  sight  to 
present  an  even  more  arduous  problem  than  Valencia.  The  people 
were  proud  of  their  ancient  liberty  and  resolute  in  its  mainte- 
nance, through  institutions  sedulously  organized  for  that  purpose. 
The  Conversos  were  numerous,  wealthy  and  powerful,  occupying 
many  of  the  higher  ofl^ces  and  intermarried  with  the  noblest 
houses  and,  in  the  fate  of  their  brethren  of  Castile,  they  had  ample 
warning  of  what  was  in  store  for  them.  In  the  revival  of  the  old 
Inquisition,  Valencia  was  the  scene  of  action  and  we  hear  little 

^  Escolano,  Hist,  del  Ciudad  y  Reyno  de  Valencia,  II,  1442  (Valencia,  1611). 
^  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Legajos  98,  374. 


244  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

of  Gualbes  and  Orts  beyond  its  boundaries.  The  acceptance, 
however,  by  the  Cortes  of  Tarazona,  in  the  Spring  of  1484,  of 
Torquemada's  jurisdiction,  of  course  included  Aragon;  he  lost 
no  time  in  organizing  a  tribunal  in  Saragossa,  by  the  appointment, 
May  4th,  as  inquisitors  of  Fray  Caspar  Juglar  and  of  Maestre 
Pedro  Arbues,  a  canon  of  the  cathedral,  with  the  necessary  sub- 
ordinates and,  by  May  11th,  the  appointments  for  a  full  court  were 
completed,  as  we  learn  by  an  order  for  the  payment  of  the  salaries/ 
The  expense  was  large  but  it  was  already  provided  for;  Torque- 
mada  must  himself  have  employed  his  leisure  in  acting  as  inquisi- 
tor for,  on  May  10th,  an  auto  de  fe  was  held  in  the  cathedral  in 
which  four  persons  were  penanced  and  subjected  to  confiscation.^ 
Caspar  Juglar  in  this  appointment  obtained  his  reward  for  the 
services  he  had  rendered  as  a  nominator  of  inquisitors,  but  he 
did  not  long  enjoy  it;  he  disappears  almost  immediately,  pois- 
oned, as  it  was  said,  by  the  Conversos  in  some  rosquillas  or  sweet 
cakes.^  No  time  was  lost  in  getting  to  work.  Ferdinand  had 
written  from  Tarazona,  May  10th,  that  the  Edict  of  Crace  which 
had  been  resolved  upon  was  not  to  be  published,  but  that  proceed- 

1  Arch.  gen.  de  la  de  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol   16. 

To  Maestre  Caspar  Juglar.  inquisitor 3000  sueldos. 

" ,  inquisitor 3000 

"  Maestre  Pedro  de  Epila,  inquisitor 1000 

"  Micer  Martin  de  la  Raga,  assessor 1000 

"  Francisco  de  Santa  Fe,  notary 2000 

"  Juan  de  Anchias,  notary  1000 

"  Ruy  Sdnchez  de  Suazo,  promoter  fiscal 2500 

"  Don  Ramon  de  Mur,  advocate  fiscal 1000 

"  Diego  Lopez,  alguazil 5000 

"  Juan  de  Exea,  receiver  1500 

The  blank  for  the  second  inquisitor  is  doubtless  to  be  filled  with  the  name  of 
Maestre  Martin  Garcia,  who  appears  in  a  later  portion  of  the  document  classed 
with  Arbues  (Pedro  de  Epila).  The  large  salary  of  the  alguazil  arose  from  his 
bearing  the  charges  of  the  prisons.  The  salaries  of  Arbues,  Raga,  Mur  and 
Anchias  were  to  begin  with  May  1st,  showing  that  they  alone  were  already  at  work. 
The  rest  were  to  commence  on  the  day  on  which  they  would  swear  that  they  left 
their  homes. 

^  Memoria  de  diversos  Autos  (see  Appendix). 

*  Ibidem.  In  this  MS.  he  is  called  Maestre  Julian,  presumably  the  error  of  a 
copyist.  Lanuza  (Hist,  de  Aragon,  II,  168,  177)  says  that  he  died  in  January, 
1485,  in  the  monastery  of  Lerida;  that  some  asserted  that  he  was  poisoned  by  the 
heretics  and  that  the  manner  of  his  death  was  investigated  by  the  chapter  of  his 
convent,  but  that  no  decision  seems  to  have  been  reached.  In  1646  a  memorial 
from  the  authorities  of  Aragon  to  Philip  IV  classes  Juglar  with  Arbues  as  a 
martyr  to  the  faith. — Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  Mm,  123. 


Chap.  V]  OPPOSITION  IN  SABAGOSSA  245 

ings  should  go  on  as  if  it  had  been  proclaimed  and  had  expired, 
thus  depriving  the  Conversos  of  the  opportunity  of  coming  for- 
ward for  confessing,  and  explaining  the  absence  at  Saragossa  of 
the  long  lists  of  penitents  that  we  find  elsewhere/  Thus,  although 
some  time  must  have  been  required  for  the  members  of  the 
tribunal  to  assemble,  by  June  3d  it  was  ready  for  another  auto, 
held  in  the  courtyard  of  the  archiepiscopal  palace.  This  time  it 
was  not  bloodless,  for  two  men  were  executed  and  a  woman  was 
burnt  in  effigy.^ 

No  more  autos  were  held  in  Saragossa  for  eighteen  months. 
Thus  far  the  people  had  been  passive;  they  had  accepted  the 
action  of  the  Cortes  of  Tarazona,  apparently  under  the  impression 
that  the  new  Inquisition  would  be  as  inert  as  the  old  had  so  long 
been,  but,  as  they  awoke  to  the  reahty,  an  opposition  arose  which 
called  a  halt  and  Arbues  never  celebrated  another  auto.  Not  only 
the  Conversos  but  many  of  the  Old  Christians  denounced  the 
Inquisition  as  contrary  to  the  Hberties  of  the  land.  The  chief 
objections  urged  against  it  were  the  secrecy  of  procedure  and  the 
confiscation  of  estates  and,  as  these  were  the  veriest  commonplaces 
of  inquisitorial  business,  it  shows  how  completely  the  old  institu- 
tion had  been  dormant.  So  many  Conversos  were  lawyers  and 
judges  and  high  officials  that  they  had  abundant  opportunity 
to  impede  the  action  of  the  tribunal  by  obtaining  injunctions  and 
decisions  of  the  courts  as  to  confiscations,  which  they  regarded  as 
the  most  assailable  point,  beUeving  that  if  these  could  be  stopped 
the  whole  business  would  perish  of  inanition.^ 

To  overcome  this  resistance,  resort  was  had  to  the  rule  com- 
pelHng  all  who  held  office  to  take  the  oath  of  obedience  to  the 
Inquisition.  On  September  19th,  the  royal  and  local  officials  were 
assembled  and  solemnly  sworn  to  maintain  inviolably  the  holy 
Roman  Catholic  faith,  to  employ  all  their  energies  against  every 
one  of  whatever  rank,  who  was  a  heretic  or  suspect  of  heresy  or  a 
fautor  of  heresy,  to  denounce  any  one  whom  they  might  know  to 
be  guilty  and  to  appoint  to  office  no  one  suspect  in  the  faith  or 
incapacitated  by  law.  A  few  days  later  the  same  oath  was  taken 
by  the  Governor  of  Aragon,  Juan  Francisco  de  Heredia  and  his 
assessor,  Francisco  de  Santa  Fe,  son  of  that  Geronimo  de  Santa 
Fe  the  convert,  who  had  stimulated  the  popular  abhorrence  of 

1  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  12. 

^  MS.  Memoria  (see  Appendix). 

'  Zurita,  Afiales,  Lib.  xx,  cap.  Ixv. — Pdramo,  pp.  180-1. 


246  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABA G ON  [Book  I 

Judaism.  Other  nobles  were  subsequently  required  to  take  the 
oath,  and  it  was  gradually  administered  to  all  the  different  Estates. 
Then,  in  November,  followed  Torquemada's  assembly  of  inquisi- 
tors at  Seville,  whose  instructions  were  duly  transmitted  to  Aragon 
for  observance,  although  Aragon  had  not  been  represented  in  the 
conference.  Thus  far  the  tribunal  seems  to  have  had  no  definite 
quarters,  but  it  was  now  settled  in  some  houses  between  the 
cathedral  and  the  archiepiscopal  palace,  convenient  to  the 
ecclesiastical  gaol.^ 

Agitation  grew  stronger  and  those  who  deemed  themselves  in 
danger  began  to  seek  safety  in  flight,  whereupon  Ferdinand,  on 
November  4th,  issued  orders  to  the  authorities  of  the  three  king- 
doms to  adopt  whatever  means  might  be  necessary  to  prevent  the 
departure  of  all  who  were  not  firm  in  the  faith.  The  effort  proved 
ineffective,  as  it  was  decided  to  be  in  violation  of  the  fueros,  but 
the  Inquisition  was  superior  to  the  fueros  and  Ferdinand  in- 
structed the  inquisitors  to  issue  an  edict  forbidding  any  one  to 
leave  the  kingdom  without  their  license,  under  pain  of  being  held 
as  a  relapsed  heretic  in  case  of  return,  and  this  scandalous  stretch 
of  arbitrary  power  he  sarcastically  said  that  he  would  enforce  so 
that  the  object  might  be  attained  without  infringing  on  the 
liberties  of  the  kingdom.^ 

The  rich  Conversos  offered  large  amounts  to  the  sovereigns  if 
they  would  forego  the  confiscations,  but  the  proposition  was 
rejected.  A  heavy  sum  was  subscribed  to  propitiate  the  curia, 
but  the  arrangement  by  which  the  land  was  subjected  to  Torque- 
mada  was  too  recent  to  be  changed.  The  lieutenant  of  the 
Justicia  of  Aragon,  Tristan  de  la  Porta,  was  urged  to  prohibit  the 
Inquisition  altogether,  but  in  vain.  Then  the  Four  Estates  of 
the  realm  were  called  together  to  deliberate  on  a  subject  which 
involved  the  liberties  of  the  whole  land.  To  forestall  their  action 
Ferdinand,  on  December  10th,  addressed  a  circular  letter  to  the 
deputies  and  to  the  leading  nobles,  entreating  them  affectionately 
to  favor  and  aid  the  inquisitors  of  Saragossa  and  Teruel,  but  this 
had  no  influence  and  a  solemn  embassy  was  sent  to  remonstrate 
with  him.  To  their  representations  he  answered,  disposing  of 
their  arguments  by  assuming  practically  that  he  was  only  the 
agent  of  the  Church  in  enforcing  the  well-known  principles  of  the 
canons.    The  essence  of  his  answer  is  embodied  in  responding  to 

^  Zurita,  Anales,  Lib.  xx,  cap.  Ixv. 

»  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  28,  86. 


Chap.  V]  RESISTANCE  IN  TEB  UEL  247 

their  demand  that  the  Inquisition  be  carried  on  as  in  times  past, 
for  in  any  other  way  it  violated  the  Hberties  of  the  kingdom. 
''There  is  no  intention"  he  said  "of  infringing  on  the  fueros  but 
rather  of  enforcing  their  observance.  It  is  not  to  be  imagined  that 
vassals  so  Catholic  as  those  of  Aragon  would  have  demanded,  or 
that  kings  so  Catholic  would  have  granted,  fueros  and  liberties 
adverse  to  the  faith  and  favorable  to  heresy.  If  the  old  inquisitors 
had  acted  conscientiously  in  accordance  with  the  canons  there 
would  have  been  no  cause  for  bringing  in  the  new  ones,  but  they 
were  without  conscience  and  corrupted  with  bribes.  If  there  are 
so  few  heretics  as  is  now  asserted,  there  should  not  be  such  dread 
of  the  Inquisition.  It  is  not  to  be  impeded  in  sequestrating  and 
confiscating  and  other  necessary  acts,  for  be  assured  that  no  cause 
or  interest,  however  great,  shall  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  its 
proceeding  in  future  as  it  is  now  doing."^ 

Meanwhile  there  had  been,  at  Teruel,  a  more  open  resistance  to 
the  Inquisition,  in  which  the  inflexible  purpose  of  the  monarch 
to  enforce  obedience  at  any  cost  was  abundantly  demonstrated. 
Simultaneously  with  the  organization  of  the  Saragossa  tribunal, 
Fray  Juan  Colivera  and  Mossen  Martin  Navarro  were  sent  to 
Teruel  with  their  subordinates  to  establish  one  there.  Teruel  was 
a  fortified  city  of  some  importance,  near  the  Castilian  border,  the 
capital  of  its  district,  although  it  was  not  elevated  into  a  separate 
bishopric  until  1577.  When  the  reverend  fathers  appeared  before 
the  gates,  the  magistrates  refused  them  entrance  and  they  pru- 
dently retired  to  Cella,  a  village  about  four  leagues  distant, 
whence  they  fulminated  an  edict  excommunicating  the  magis- 
trates and  casting  an  interdict  on  the  town.  From  the  venal  papal 
court  Teruel  had  no  difficulty  in  procuring  letters  in  virtue  of  which 
the  dean,  Francisco  Savistan,  and  Martin  de  San  Juan,  rector 
of  Villaquemada,  absolved  the  excommunicates  and  removed  the 
interdict,  nor  is  it  likely  that  any  success  attended  Ferdinand's 
order  to  his  son,  the  Archbishop  of  Saragossa,  to  send  to  his 
official  at  Teruel  secret  instructions  to  seize  the  two  priests  and 
hold  them  in  chains.  The  town  sent  a  supplication  to  him  by 
Juan  de  la  Mata  and  Micer  Jaime  Mora,  but  he  only  ordered  them 
to  send  home  a  peremptory  command  to  submit,  under  pain  of  such 
punishment  as  should  serve  as  a  perpetual  example.  This  he  also 
communicated  to  the  Governor  of  Aragon,  Juan  Fernandez  de 
Heredia,  with  instructions  to  take  it  to  Teruel  and  read  it  to  the 

1  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  29,  35. 


248  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON  [Book  I 

magistrates,  when,  if  they  did  not  yield,  a  formal  summons  to 
appear  before  him  was  to  be  read  to  each  one  individually — all 
of  which  was  doubtless  performed  without  effect.  Ferdinand  had 
also  ordered  the  envoys  not  to  leave  the  court,  but  they  fled 
secretly  and  his  joy  was  extreme  when,  six  months  later,  Juan  de 
la  Mata  was  captured  by  Juan  Garces  de  Marzilla. 

The  next  step  of  the  Inquisition  was  a  decree,  October  2,  1484, 
confiscating  to  the  crown  all  the  offices  in  Teruel  and  pronouncing 
the  incumbents  incapable  of  holding  any  office  of  honor  or  profit 
— a  decree  which  Ferdinand  proceeded  to  execute  by  stopping 
their  salaries.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  Diputados  of  Aragon  inter- 
ceded with  him;  he  replied  curtly  that  the  people  of  Teruel  had 
nothing  to  complain  of  and  were  guilty  of  madness  and  outrage. 
Then  the  inquisitors  took  final  action,  which  was  strictly  within 
their  competence,  by  issuing  a  letter  invoking  the  aid  of  the  secular 
arm  and  summoning  the  king  to  enable  them  to  seize  the  magis- 
trates and  confiscate  their  property.  To  this  he  responded,  Feb- 
ruary 5,  1485,  with  an  Executoria  invocationis  hrachii  siECularis, 
addressed  to  all  the  officials  of  Aragon,  requiring  them  and  the 
nobles  to  assemble  all  the  horse  and  foot  that  they  could  raise 
and  put  them  at  the  service  of  the  inquisitors,  under  a  captain 
whom  he  would  send  to  take  command.  Under  pain  of  the  royal 
wrath,  deprivation  of  office,  a  fine  of  twenty  thousand  gold  florins 
and  discretional  penalties,  they  were  ordered  to  seize  all  the 
inhabitants  of  Teruel  and  their  property  and  deliver  them  to  the 
inquisitors  to  be  punished  for  their  enormous  crimes  in  such  wise 
as  should  serve  for  a  lasting  example.  The  people  of  Cella,  also, 
were  ordered  to  deliver  their  castle  to  the  inquisitors  to  serve  as 
a  prison  and  to  make  all  repairs  necessary  for  that  purpose. 
Apparently  the  response  of  Aragon  to  this  summons  was  unsatis- 
factory for  Ferdinand,  in  defiance  of  the  fuero  which  forbade  the 
introduction  of  foreign  troops  into  the  kingdom,  took  the  extreme 
step  of  calling  upon  the  nobles  of  Cuenca  and  other  Castilian  dis- 
tricts contiguous  to  the  border,  to  raise  their  men  and  join  in  the 
holy  war,  while  the  receiver  of  confiscations  was  ordered  to  sell 
enough  property  to  meet  the  expenses.  Whether  this  formidable 
array  was  raised  or  not,  the  documents  do  not  inform  us,  nor  of 
the  circumstances  under  which  Teruel  submitted,  but  it  had 
braved  the  royal  will  as  long  as  it  dared  and  it  could  not  hold  out 
against  the  forces  of  two  kingdoms.  By  April  15th  Ferdinand  was 
in  position  to  appoint  Juan  Garces  de  Marzilla,  the  captor  of  Juan 


Chap.  V]  RESISTANCE  IN  TERUEL  249 

de  la  Mata,  as  assistente  or  governor  of  Teruel,  with  absolute  dicta- 
torial powers,  and  the  spirit  in  which  he  exercised  them  may  be 
gathered  from  his  declaration  that  he  did  not  intend  to  allow 
fueros  or  privileges  to  stand  in  the  way.  The  lot  of  the  inhabi- 
tants was  hard.  Ferdinand  ordered  Marzilla  to  banish  all  whom 
the  inquisitors  might  designate,  thus  placing  the  whole  population 
at  their  mercy,  and  their  rule  must  have  been  exasperating,  for, 
in  January,  1486,  Ferdinand  reproaches  Marzilla  because  his 
nephew,  who  had  aided  in  the  capture  of  la  Mata,  had  recently 
attempted  to  slay  the  alguazil  of  the  Inquisition,  Presumably 
the  inquisitorial  coffers  were  filled  with  the  fines  and  confisca- 
tions which  could  be  inflicted  at  discretion  on  the  citizens  for 
impeding  the  Inquisition.  During  the  long  struggle  Teruel  had 
been  at  the  disadvantage  that  the  surrounding  country  supported 
the  inquisitors,  won  over  through  an  astute  device  by  which  the 
inquisitors,  while  at  Cella,  had  guaranteed,  on  the  payment  of 
certain  sums,  the  remission  of  all  debts  and  the  release  of  all 
censos  or  bonds  and  groundrents,  which  might  be  due  to  heretics 
who  should  be  convicted  and  subjected  to  confiscation  in  Teruel. 
All  debtors  were  thus  eager  for  the  success  of  the  inquisitors  and 
for  the  punishment  of  heresy  among  the  money-lending  Converses 
of  the  town,^ 

Meanwhile,  in  Saragossa,  the  Converses  were  growing  desperate. 
All  peaceful  means  of  averting  the  fate  that  hung  over  them  had 
failed  and  events  at  Teruel  demonstrated  the  futility  of  resistance. 
The  bolder  spirits  began  to  whisper  that  the  only  resource  left 
was  to  kill  an  inquisitor  or  two,  when  the  warning  would  deter 
others  from  incurring  the  hazard.  They  knew  that  secret  infor- 
mations were  on  foot  gathering  from  all  sources  testimony  against 
them  all.  Inquisitor  Arbues  was  almost  openly  said  to  be  ready 
to  pay  for  satisfactory  evidence,  and  the  life  and  fortune  of  every 
man  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  evil-minded.^  Sancho  de  Paternoy, 
the  Maestre  Racional  of  Aragon,  when  on  trial,  admitted  to  preju- 
dice against  Juan  de  Anchias,  secretary  of  the  tribunal,  because 


1  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  12,  23,  27,  31,  35,  38,  39,  42,  47-9, 
51-3,  55-8,  60,  63,  72,  98. 

In  1502,  with  characteristic  faithlessness,  the  inquisitors  at  Teruel  proposed 
to  collect  all  the  debts  due  to  the  confiscated  estates,  but  Ferdinand  intervened 
and  sternly  forbade  it.— Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  2,  fol.  16. 

^  Bibl.  nacionale  de  France,  fonds  espagnol,  80,  fol.  4. 


250  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON  [Book  I 

he  had  enquired  of  a  Jewish  tailor  whether  Paternoy  had  a  seat 
in  the  synagogue.^  Suspense  was  becoming  insupportable;  the 
project  of  assassination  gradually  took  shape  and,  when  the  friends 
of  the  Conversos  at  the  royal  court  were  consulted,  including 
Ferdinand's  treasurer  Gabriel  Sanchez,  they  approved  of  it  and 
wrote  that  if  an  inquisitor  was  murdered  it  would  put  an  end  to 
the  Inquisition.^ 

At  first  the  intention  was  to  make  way  not  only  with  Pedro 
Arbues  but  with  the  assessor,  Martin  de  la  Raga,  and  with  Micer 
Pedro  Frances,  and  a  plot  was  laid  to  drown  the  assessor  while  he 
was  walking  by  the  Ebro,  but  he  chanced  to  be  accompanied  by 
two  gentlemen  and  it  was  abandoned.^  The  whole  attention  of 
the  conspirators  was  then  concentrated  on  Arbues.  Maestre 
Epila,  as  he  was  commonly  called,  was  not  a  man  of  any  special 
note,  though  his  selection  by  Torquemada  indicates  that  he  was 
reputed  to  possess  the  qualities  necessary  to  curb  the  recalcitrant 
Aragonese,  and  we  are  told  that  he  was  an  eloquent  preacher. 
He  possessed  the  gift  of  prophecy,  if  we  may  beheve  the  story  that 
he  foretold  to  his  colleague  Martin  Garcia  that  he  would  reach  the 
episcopate,  for  Garcia,  in  1512,  became  Bishop  of  Barcelona,  but 
such  foresight  is  not  necessary  to  explain  his  reluctance  to  accept 
the  inquisitorship,  for,  although  this  was  always  a  promising 
avenue  to  promotion,  the  post  was  evidently  to  be  an  arduous 
one.*  His  hesitation  was  overcome  and  we  have  seen  how  ener- 
getically he  commenced  his  new  career,  yet  the  interruptions 
which  supervened  had  prevented  him  from  accomplishing  much 
and  he  fell  a  victim  rather  to  fear  than  to  revenge. 

The  conspirators  were  evidently  irresolute,  for  the  plot  was  long 
in  hatching,  but  the  secret  was  wonderfully  well  kept,  considering 
that  the  correspondence  respecting  it  was  extensive.  Rumors 
however  were  not  lacking  and,  as  early  as  January  29,  1485,  Ferdi- 
nand wrote  to  the  Governor  of  Aragon  that  a  conspiracy  was  on 
foot  and  that  a  large  sum  was  being  raised  to  embarrass  the 
Inquisition  in  every  way,  yet  at  the  same  time  he  thanked  the 
jurats  for  their  zeal  in  aiding  the  inquisitors.^    If  suspicion  was 

1  Libro  Verde  de  Aragon  (MS.,  fol.  67). 

^  Libro  Verde  (Revista  de  Espafia,  CVI,  281-2). 

^  Zurita,  Anales,  Libro  xx,  cap.  Ixv. 

*  Trasmiera,  Epitome  de  la  santa  Vida  y  relacion  de  la  gloriosa  muerte  del 
Venerable  Pedro  de  Arbues,  pp.  15,  32,  50  (Madrid,  1664).— Villanueva,  Viage 
literario,   XVIII,   50. 

»  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  37,  38. 


Chap.  V]  ASSASSINATION  OF  ARBUES  251 

then  aroused,  it  slumbered  again  and  for  six  months  meetings 
were  held  without  being  discovered.  It  was  determined  to  raise 
a  fund  for  hiring  assassins  and  three  treasurers  were  appointed. 
Juan  de  Esperandeu,  a  currier,  known  as  a  desperate  man,  whose 
father  had  been  arrested,  undertook  to  find  the  bravos  and  hired 
Juan  de  la  Badia  for  the  purpose.  In  April  or  May,  1485,  an 
attempt  was  made  on  the  house  where  Arbues  lodged,  but  the 
men  were  frightened  off  and  the  matter  was  postponed  for  several 
months.  At  length,  on  the  night  of  September  15th,  Esperandeu 
went  to  the  house  of  la  Badia  and  wakened  him;  together  they 
returned  to  Esperandeu's,  where  they  found  the  latter's  servant 
Vidau  Durango,  a  Frenchman,  with  Mateo  Ram,  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  plot,  his  squire  Tristanico  Leonis  and  three  others 
who  were  masked  and  who  remained  unknown.  They  all  went 
to  the  cathedral  and  entered  by  the  chapter  door,  which  was 
open  on  account  of  the  service  of  matins.  Arbues  was  kneeling 
in  prayer  between  the  high  altar  and  the  choir,  where  the  canons 
were  chanting;  he  knew  that  his  life  was  threatened,  for  he  wore 
a  coat  of  mail  and  a  steel  cap,  while  a  lance  which  he  carried  was 
leaning  against  a  pillar.  La  Badia  whispered  to  Durango  "There 
he  is,  give  it  to  him!"  Durango  stole  up  behind  and,  with  a 
back-stroke,  clove  his  neck  between  his  armor.  He  rose  and 
staggered  towards  the  choir,  followed  by  la  Badia,  who  pierced 
him  through  the  arm,  while  Mateo  Ram  was  also  said  to  have 
thrust  him  through  the  body.  He  fell ;  the  assassins  hurried  away 
and  the  canons,  alarmed  at  the  noise,  rushed  from  the  choir  and 
carried  him  to  his  house  near  by,  where  surgeons  were  summoned 
who  pronounced  the  wounds  to  be  mortal.  He  lay  for  twenty- 
four  hours,  repeating,  we  are  told,  pious  ejaculations,  and  died  on 
September  17th,  between  1  and  2  a.m.  Miracles  at  once  attested 
his  sanctity.  On  the  night  of  the  murder  the  holy  bell  of  Villela 
tolled  without  human  hands,  breaking  the  bull's  pizzle  with  which 
the  clapper  was  secured.  His  blood,  which  stained  the  flagstones 
of  the  cathedral,  after  drying  for  two  weeks,  suddenly  liquefied, 
so  that  crowds  came  to  dip  in  it  cloths  and  scapulars  and  had  to 
be  forcibly  driven  off  when  he  was  buried  on  the  spot  where  he 
fell :  when  the  conspirators  were  interrogated  by  the  inquisitors, 
their  mouths  became  black  and  their  tongues  were  parched  so 
that  they  were  unable  to  speak  until  water  was  given  to  them. 
It  was  popularly  believed  that  when,  in  their  flight,  they  reached 
the  boundaries  of  the  kingdom,  they  became  divinely  benumbed 


252  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON  [Book  I 

until  seized  by  their  captors.  More  credible  is  the  miracle, 
reported  by  Juan  de  Anchias,  that  their  trials  led  to  the  discovery 
of  innumerable  heretics  who  were  duly  penanced  or  burnt/ 
Pecuniarily  the  affair  had  not  been  costly;  the  whole  outlay  had 
been  only  six  hundred  florins,  of  which  one  hundred  was  paid  to 
the  assassin.^ 

Like  the  nmrder  of  Pierre  de  Castelnau  in  Languedoc,  this 
crime  turned  the  scale.  Its  immediate  effect  was  to  cause  a  revul- 
sion of  popular  feeling,  which  hitherto  had  been  markedly  hostile 
to  the  Inquisition.  The  news  of  the  assassination  spread  through 
the  city  with  marvellous  rapidity  and  before  dawn  the  streets 
were  filled  with  excited  crowds  shouting  "Burn  the  Conversos 
who  have  slain  the  inquisitor!"  There  was  danger,  in  the  exalta- 
tion of  feeling,  not  only  that  the  Conversos  would  be  massacred 
but  that  the  Juderia  and  Moreria  would  be  sacked.  By  daylight 
the  archbishop,  Alfonso  de  Aragon,  mounted  his  horse  and 
traversed  the  streets,  calming  the  mob  with  promises  of  speedy 
justice.  A  meeting  was  at  once  called  of  all  the  principal  persons 
in  the  city,  which  resolved  itself  into  a  national  assembly  and 
empowered  all  ecclesiastical  and  secular  officials  to  proceed  against 
every  one  concerned  with  the  utmost  vigor  and  without  observing 
the  customs  and  fueros  of  the  kingdom.^    For  some  days  the  Con- 


'  Memoria  de  diversos  Autos  (Appendix). — Libre  Verde  (Revista  de  Espana, 
CVI,  281-6,  288).— Raynald  Annal.  ann.  1485,  n.  23,  24.— Zurita,  Anales,  Lib. 
XX,  cap.  Ixv. — Juan  Gines  Sepiilveda,  Descriptio  Collegii  Hespanorum  Bononi- 
ensis. — Blancas,  Aragon.  Rerum  Comment,  p.  268. — Bibliotheque  nat.  de 
France,  fonds  espagnol,  80,  fol.  33. 

In  spite  of  these  miracles  and  of  innumerable  others  which  manifested  the 
sanctity  of  Arbues,  the  Holy  See  was  distinctly  averse  to  his  canonization.  A 
papal  brief  even  ordered  the  removal  from  the  cathedral  of  the  sanbenitos  of 
the  assassins  and  strenuous  efforts  were  required  to  procure  its  revocation. 

Repeated  investigations  were  made  by  successive  popes  without  result — at 
the  request  of  Charles  V  in  1537;  of  Philip  III  in  1604,  1615  and  1618;  of  Philip 
IV  in  1622  and  1652,  until  at  length  in  1664  he  was  beatified  (Trasmiera,  pp.  98, 
99,  133,  137,  139).  The  matter  then  rested  for  two  centuries  until,  in  1864,  it 
was  taken  up  again  and  finally,  June  29,  1867,  he  was  canonized  by  Pius  IX 
(Dom.  Bartolini,  Comment.  Actor.  Omnium  Canonizationis,  Romae,  1868). 

It  is  significant  that  the  Inquisition  did  not  await  the  tardy  action  of  Rome. 
Instructions  of  the  Suprema  in  1603,  1623  and  1633  show  that  his  feast  was 
regularly  celebrated  with  prescribed  offices  (MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copen- 
hagen, 218^,  p.  257)  and,  during  the  17th  and  18th  centuries,  he  is  constantly 
spoken  of,  in  the  documents  of  the  Inquisition  relating  to  the  feast,  as  San  Pedro 
Arbues. 

^  Memoria  de  diversos  Autos,  Auto  25  (Appendix).  '  Zurita,  loc.  cit. 


Chap.  V]  REVULSION  OF  FEELING  253 

versos  continued  to  flatter  themselves  that  with  money  they 
would  disarm  Ferdinand's  wrath;  they  had,  they  said,  the  whole 
court  with  them  and  the  sympathies  of  all  the  magnates  of  the 
land,^  but  they  miscalculated  his  shrewd  resolve  to  profit  to  the 
utmost  by  their  blunder  and  the  consequent  weakness  of  their 
friends.  The  royal  anger,  indeed,  was  much  dreaded  and  the 
Diputados,  a  few  days  later,  wrote  to  the  king  reporting  what  had 
been  done;  the  criminals  had  already  scattered  in  flight;  the  city 
had  offered  a  reward  of  five  hundred  ducats;  the  judges  had 
written  to  foreign  lands  to  invoke  aid  in  intercepting  the  fugitives 
and  both  city  and  kingdom  would  willingly  undergo  all  labor  and 
expense  necessary  to  avenge  the  crime.  A  proclamation  was  also 
issued  exconmiunicating  all  having  knowledge  of  the  conspiracy 
who  should  not  within  a  given  time  come  forward  and  reveal  what 
they  knew.^ 

It  was  probably  in  consequence  of  the  murder  that  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella  succeeded  in  obtaining,  from  Innocent  VIII,  papal 
letters  of  April  3,  1487,  ordering  all  princes  and  rulers  and  magis- 
trates to  seize  and  deliver  to  the  Inquisition  of  Spain  all  fugitives 
who  should  be  designated  to  them,  thus  extending  its  arms  every- 
where throughout  Christendom  and  practically  outlawing  all 
refugees;  no  proof  was  to  be  required,  simple  requisition  sufficed, 
the  surrender  was  to  be  made  within  thirty  days  and  safe-conduct 
assured  to  the  frontier,  under  pain  of  excommunication  and  the 
penalties  for  fautorship  of  heresy.  Fortunately  for  humanity  this 
atrocious  attempt  to  establish  a  new  international  law  by  papal 
absolutism  was  practically  ignored.^ 


*  Memoria,  loc  cit. 

^  Gams,  Zur  Geschichte  der  spanischen  Staatsinquisition,  p.  34. — Bibl.  nation- 
ale  de  France,  fonds  espagnol,  81. 

^  This  brief  is  printed  in  the  Boletin,  XVI,  368  by  Padre  Fidel  Fita,  who  is  in 
error  in  assuming  its  obedience  in  France  from  the  case  of  Juan  de  Pedro  Sdnchez, 
reported  in  an  essay  of  mine  on  the  Martyrdom  of  Arbu^s.  This  was  merely  an 
instance  of  friendly  co-operation  between  the  Inquisitions  of  Toulouse  and  Sara- 
gossa  and  occurred  too  early  to  be  the  result  of  the  papal  letters  which  were  not 
received  in  Cordova  until  May  31,  1487. 

We  have  seen  (p.  191),  by  a  case  occurring  in  1501,  that  Manoel  of  Portugal 
considered  that  there  was  no  obligation  to  return  fugitives  from  the  Inquisition ; 
it  was  a  matter  of  comity  to  be  decided  on  the  merits  of  each  case.  There  was  a 
similar  one  in  1500,  and  when,  in  1510  and  1514,  fugitives  were  asked  for,  under 
plea  that  they  were  wanted  as  witnesses,  Manoel  refused  to  surrender  them  with- 
out absolute  pledges  that  they  should  suffer  no  harm  (Archivo  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,  Libro  1;  Libro  3,  fol.  85,  107,  110). 

When  Portugal  obtained  an  Inquisition,  the  two  inquisitors-general,  in  1544, 


254  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

There  was  one  case  however  in  which  its  punitive  clauses  seem 
to  have  been  invoked.  Several  of  the  accomplices  in  the  assas- 
sination found  refuge  in  Tudela,  a  frontier  city  of  Navarre  and, 
on  January  27,  1486,  Ferdinand  wrote  to  the  magistrates  there 
affectionately  requesting  that,  if  the  inquisitors  should  send  for  the 
accused,  all  aid  should  be  rendered,  seeing  that  he  had  given  orders 
to  obey  such  requisitions  throughout  his  own  kingdoms.  This 
application  was  unsuccessful  and  in  May  he  repeated  it  imperi- 
ously, threatening  war  upon  them  as  defenders  of  heretics.^  The 
condition  of  the  perishing  kingdom  of  Navarre,  under  the  youthful 
Catherine  and  Jean  d'Albret,  was  not  such  as  to  protect  it  from 
the  insults  of  a  sovereign  like  Ferdinand  and  the  inquisitors  pre- 
sumed so  far  as  to  instruct  Don  Juan  de  Ribera,  then  in  command 
of  the  frontier,  to  carry  the  royal  threats  into  execution.  That 
prudent  officer  refused  to  make  war  upon  a  friendly  state  without 
the  protection  of  an  express  order  bearing  the  signatures  of 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  whereupon,  on  June  30th,  the  inquisitors 
complained  of  him  to  the  king.  He  was  in  Galicia,  suppressing  a 
rising  of  the  Count  of  Lemos  and  reducing  the  lawless  nobles  to 
order  and  from  Viso,  July  22d,  he  replied  that  he  would  at  once 
have  sent  the  order  but  that  he  had  brought  with  him  all  the 
frontier  troops;  as  soon  as  his  task  was  accomplished  he  would 
send  back  forces  with  orders  to  Don  Juan  to  make  war  on  Tudela 
in  such  fashion  as  to  compel  it  to  do  what  was  requisite  for  the 
service  of  God.^  A  letter  of  the  same  date  to  Torquemada  states 
that  the  inquisitors  have  asked  for  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal 
against  Tudela  on  account  of  Luis  de  Santangel,  but  this  must  be 
preceded  by  a  carta  requisitoria,  which  he  instructs  Torquemada 
to  prepare  and  send  to  him  when  he  will  execute  it.'  It  was  not 
until  the  end  of  November  that  the  sovereigns  returned  to  Sala- 
manca and  it  is  presumable  that  the  campaign  against  Tudela 
was  postponed  until  the  Spring.  Of  course  the  fugitives  had  long 
before  sought  some  safer  asylum,  but  the  papal  brief  of  April  3, 

came  to  an  agreement,  with  the  assent  of  the  respective  monarchs,  which  super- 
seded extradition.  The  fugitive  was  to  be  tried  in  the  country  where  he  was 
captured  and  the  Inquisition  from  which  he  had  fied  was  to  furnish  the  evidence. 
— Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.  X,  257,  fol.  218. 

'  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  75.— Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  269. 

*  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  103. 

*  Ibidem,  fol.  102  (see  Appendix).  It  was  Martin  de  Santangel,  not  Luis,  who 
took  refuge  in  Tudela.  He  was  not  caught,  but  was  burnt  in  effigy,  July  28, 
1486. 


Chap.  V]  THE  INQUISITION  AT  WORK  255 

1487,  could  be  enforced  against  the  magistrates  and  they  endured 
the  humiliation  of  submitting  to  the  tribunal  of  Saragossa.  At 
an  auto  de  fe  held  March  2,  1488,  the  alcalde  and  eight  of  the 
citizens  appeared  and  performed  penance/ 

Ferdinand  recognized  the  opportunity  afforded  by  the  assassina- 
tion of  Arbues  and  was  resolved  to  make  the  most  of  it.  Promi- 
nent among  the  means  for  this  was  the  stimulation  of  the  popular 
veneration  of  the  martyr.  On  September  29,  1486,  his  solemn 
exequies  were  celebrated  with  as  much  solenmity  as  those  of  the 
holiest  saint;  a  splendid  tomb  was  built  to  which  his  remains  were 
translated,  December  8,  1487;  a  statue  was  erected  with  an 
inscription  by  the  sovereigns  and  over  it  a  bas-relief  representing 
the  scene  of  the  murder.  During  a  pestilence,  in  1490,  the  city 
ordered  a  silver  lamp,  fifty  ounces  in  weight,  to  be  placed  before 
the  tomb  and  another  silver  lamp  to  burn  day  and  night.^  His 
cult  as  a  saint  was  not  allowed  to  await  the  tardy  recognition  of 
the  Holy  See. 

The  conspirators  miscalculated  when  they  imagined  that  his 
murder  would  deter  others  from  taking  his  place.  There  was  no 
danger  for  inquisitors  now  in  Aragon  and  the  tribunal  of  Saragossa 
was  promptly  remanned  and  enlarged  for  the  abundant  harvest 
that  was  expected.^  It  was  not  long  in  getting  to  work  and  on 
December  28,  1485,  an  auto  was  celebrated  in  which  a  man  and  a 
woman  were  burnt.''  The  tribunal  was  removed  to  the  royal 
palace-fortress  outside  of  the  walls,  known  as  the  Aljaferia,  as  an 
evidence  that  it  was  under  the  royal  safeguard  and  Ferdinand 
proclaimed  that  he  and  his  successors  took  it  under  their  special 
protection.^    Strict  orders  were  sent  to  the  Estates  of  the  kingdom 

*  Memoria  de  diversos  Autos,  Auto  29  (Appendix). 

In  after  years,  Ferdinand  was  less  inclined  to  invade  friendly  territory.  Feb- 
ruary 25,  1501,  writing  to  the  Archdeacon  of  Almazan,  Inquisitor  of  Catalayud, 
about  an  inhabitant  of  Fitero,  a  town  just  beyond  the  border,  he  says  that  if  the 
culprit  can  be  arrested  within  his  jurisdiction  it  can  be  done,  but  there  must  be 
no  deceit  and  no  scandal. — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  1. 

^  Zurita,  Anales,  Lib.  xx,  cap.  Ixv.— Llorente,  Hist.  crlt.  Cap.  vi,  Art.  ii,  n.  1. 
— Trasmiera,   p.   101. 

3  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  67,  68,  83,  86. 

*  Memoria  de  diversos  Autos,  Auto  3  (see  Appendix). 

*  Zurita,  loc.  cit. — The  order  to  receive  the  tribunal  in  the  Aljaferia  bears  date 
January  12,  1486  (Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  83).  Subsequently  it 
was  transferred  to  the  archiepiscopal  palace  in  order  to  let  the  Aljaferia  be  occupied 
by  a  member  of  the  royal  family,  but  the  inquisitors  complained  and  were  allowed 
to  return  in  1498.    They  encroached  upon  the  royal  apartments,  much  to  Ferdi- 


256  ^^^  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

and  to  the  local  officials  to  suppress  summarily  all  resistance  to 
the  confiscations,  which  were  becoming  so  extensive  that  the 
receiver  at  Saragossa  had  his  hands  full  and  was  empowered  to 
appoint  deputies  throughout  the  land  to  attend  to  the  work  in 
their  respective  districts/ 

In  the  prevailing  temper  pursuit  was  hot  after  the  murderers 
of  Arbues  and  the  avengers  were  soon  upon  their  track.  There 
were  some  hair-breadth  escapes,  and  much  curious  detail,  for 
which  space  fails  us  here,  will  be  found  in  the  Memoria  de  diversos 
Autos  in  the  Appendix,  some  of  it  showing  that  there  were  power- 
ful secret  influences  in  favor  of  individuals.  One  party,  consist- 
ing of  the  chief  contriver  of  the  plot,  Juan  de  Pedro  Sanchez  and 
his  wife,  Gaspar  de  Santa  Cruz  and  his  wife,  Martin  de  Santangel, 
Garcia  de  Moras,  Mossen  Pedro  Manas  and  the  two  Pedro  de 
Almazan,  effected  their  escape  by  way  of  Tudela,  for  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  city  was  held  responsible,  and  the  Lord  of 
Cadreyta,  an  ancestor  of  the  Dukes  of  Alburquerque,  was  penanced 
for  giving  thei^i  shelter  and  receiving  sixty  florins  in  payment.^ 

Although  by  decree  both  secular  and  ecclesiastical  courts  were 
empowered  to  punish  the  guilty,  the  prosecutions  seem  to  have 
been  left  altogether  to  the  Inquisition  and  it  had  the  satisfaction 
of  burning  the  effigies  of  the  fugitives.  Many,  however,  paid  the 
penalty  in  their  persons.  Vidau  Durango  was  soon  caught  at 
Lerida,  when  he  made  no  difficulty  in  revealing  the  details  of  the 
plot  and  the  names  of  the  accomplices.  The  work  of  retribution 
followed  and  was  continued  for  years.  In  the  auto  of  June  30, 
1486,  Juan  de  Pedro  Sanchez  was  burnt  in  effigy ;  Vidau  Durango 
was  treated  mercifully,  doubtless  in  consideration  of  his  com- 
municativeness; his  hands  were  cut  off  and  nailed  to  the  door  of 
the  Diputacion,  or  House  of  Diputados,  and  it  was  not  until  he 
was  dead  that  he  was  dragged  to  the  market-place  when  he  was 
beheaded  and  quartered  and  the  fragments  were  suspended  in  the 
streets.  The  punishment  of  Juan  de  Esperandeu  was  more  harsh ; 
he  was  dragged  while  living  to  the  portal  of  the  cathedral  when 
his  hands  were  cut  off;  he  was  then  dragged  to  the  market-place, 


nand's  disgust,  as  expressed  in  a  letter  of  September  30,  1511.  In  January,  1515, 
he  ordered  them  to  leave  the  palace  and  rent  accommodations  in  the  city,  but 
finally  they  obtained  permanent  possession. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion, 
Libro  1;  Libro  3,  fol.  155,  321,  322. 

1  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  76. 

^  Memoria  de  diversos  Autos,  Auto  27,  n.  3  (see  Appendix). 


Chap.  V]  PUNISHMENT  OF  THE  ASSASSINS  257 

beheaded  and  quartered,  as  in  the  case  of  Durango.  On  July 
28th,  Gaspar  de  Santa  Cruz  and  Martin  de  Santangel  were  burnt 
in  effigy  and  Pedro  de  Exea,  who  had  contributed  to  the  fund,  was 
burnt  alive.  On  October  21st,  Maria  de  la  Badia  was  burnt  as  an 
accessory.  On  December  15th  an  auto  was  hastily  arranged; 
Francisco  de  Santa  Fe,  assessor  of  the  Governor  of  Aragon  and  son 
of  the  great  Converso  Jeronimo  de  Santa  Fe,  was  fatally  com- 
promised in  the  conspiracy;  hopeless  of  escape  he  threw  himself 
from  the  battlement  of  the  tower  in  which  he  was  confined  and 
was  dashed  to  pieces  and  the  same  day  his  remains  were  burnt 
and  his  bones,  enclosed  in  a  box,  were  cast  into  the  Tagus  as 
though  it  was  feared  that  they  would  be  venerated  as  those  of  a 
martyr.  Juan  de  la  Badia  eluded  his  tormentors  in  even  more 
desperate  fashion.  An  auto  was  arranged  for  January  21,  1487, 
in  which  he  was  to  suffer;  in  his  cell  the  day  before  he  broke  in 
pieces  a  glass  lamp  and  swallowed  the  fragments,  which  speedily 
brought  the  death  he  craved ;  the  next  day  his  corpse  was  dragged 
and  quartered  and  the  hands  were  cut  off  and  on  the  same  occasion 
there  were  burnt  in  effigy  as  accomplices  Pedro  de  Almazan  the 
elder,  Anton  Perez  and  Pedro  de  Vera.  On  March  15th  Mateo 
Ram,  who  superintended  the  murder,  had  his  hands  cut  off  and 
was  then  burnt,  with  Joan  Frances,  who  was  suspected  of  com- 
plicity and  the  effigies  of  three  accomplices,  Juan  Ram,  Alonso 
Sanchez  and  Garcia  de  Moras.  August  8th,  Luis  de  Santangel,  who 
was  one  of  the  chief  conspirators,  was  beheaded  in  the  market- 
place, his  head  was  set  upon  a  pole  and  his  body  was  burnt.^ 
Thus  the  ghastly  tragedy  went  on  for  years,  as  the  ramifications 
of  the  conspiracy  were  explored  and  all  who  were  remotely  con- 
nected with  it  were  traced.  It  was  not  until  1488  that  Juan  de  la 
Caballeria  was  placed  on  trial,  the  wife  of  Gaspar  de  la  Caballeria 
having  testified  that  her  husband  told  her  that  Juan  had  offered 
him  five  hundred  florins  to  kill  the  inquisitor.  Juan  admitted 
having  learned  from  Juan  de  Pedro  Sanchez  that  there  was  a 
fund  for  the  purpose  and  that  he  had  mentioned  it  to  Gaspar  but 
concluded  that  Gaspar  had  not  sufficient  resolution  for  the  deed; 
he  cUed  in  gaol  in  1490  and  his  body  was  burnt  in  the  auto  of 
July  8,  1491,  while  Gaspar  was  penanced  in  that  of  September  8, 
1492.^    In  this  latter  auto  Sancho  de  Paternoy,  Maestre  Racional 

^  Memoria  de  diversos  Autos,  Autos  10,  11,  14,  16,  18,  20,  22  (Appendix) 
'  Bibl.  nacionale  de  France,  fonds  espagnol,  81. — Memoria  de  diversos  Autos, 
Auto  43,  n.  6;  Auto  45,  n.  1. 

17 


258  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  Alt  AG  ON  [Book  I 

of  Aragon,  was  penanced  with  perpetual  imprisonment.  His  trial 
had  been  a  prolonged  one;  he  had  been  repeatedly  tortured  and 
had  confessed  privity  to  the  murder  and  had  then  retracted 
wholly,  saying  that  he  knew  nothing  about  it  and  that  he  had 
spent  the  night  of  the  assassination  in  the  palace  of  the  arch- 
bishop. His  guilt  was  not  clear ;  he  had  powerful  friends,  especially 
Gabriel  Sanchez,  Ferdinand's  treasurer,  and  he  was  punished  on 
mere  suspicion.^  Any  expression  of  satisfaction  at  the  murder 
was  an  offence  to  be  dearly  expiated.  Among  the  crimes  for 
which  Pedro  Sanchez  was  burnt,  May  2,  1489,  this  is  enumerated 
and  it  was  one  of  the  chief  accusations  brought  against  Brianda 
de  Bardaxi,  but,  though  she  admitted  it  under  torture  she 
retracted  it  afterwards ;  it  could  not  be  proved  against  her  and  she 
was  let  off  with  a  fine  of  a  third  of  her  property  and  temporary 
imprisonment.^  The  assassination  gave  the  Inquisition  ample 
opportunity  to  make  a  profound  impression  and  it  made  the 
most  of  its  good  fortune.^ 

'  Libre  Verde  (Revista  de  Espaiia,  CVI,  287,  589.— Ibid.  MS.  fol.  65-74). 

^  Memoria  de  diversos  Autos,  Auto  36,  n.  1. — Bibl.  nationale  de  France,  fonds 
espagnol,  80. 

^  It  is  impossible  to  construct  a  full  catalogue  of  the  victims.  Llorente  un- 
doubtedly exaggerates  when  he  asserts  (Hist.  crft.  Chap,  vi,  Art.  v,  n.  1)  that 
the  executions  numbered  more  than  200  and  so  does  Amador  de  los  Rios  (III, 
266)  in  saying  that  the  greater  part  of  those  who  appeared  in  the  Saragossa 
autos  from  1486  to  1492  were  accomplices  in  the  murder.  The  sentences 
abstracted  in  the  Memoria  show  that  but  few  of  them  were  concerned  in  it. 

Anchias,  the  notary  of  the  tribunal,  in  his  account  of  the  affair,  only  enumerates 
as  put  to  death  three  treasurers  of  the  fund,  five  assassins  and  four  accomplices 
besides  Sancho  de  Paternoy  and  Alonso  de  Alagon  who  escaped  with  imprison- 
ment through  friendly  influences  (Libro  Verde,  Revista,  CVI,  287).  The  indica- 
tions in  the  Memoria  are  incomplete  as,  after  May,  1489,  the  crimes  of  the  culprits 
are  not  stated  but,  so  far  as  it  goes  and  comparing  it  with  the  Libro  Verde  and 
other  sources,  I  find  nine  executed  in  person,  besides  two  suicides,  thirteen  burnt 
in  effigy  and  four  penanced  for  complicity.  Besides  these  are  two  penanced  for 
suborning  false  witness  in  favor  of  Luis  de  Santangel  and  seventeen  for  aiding 
or  sheltering  the  guilty,  and  two  for  rejoicing  at  the  crime.  Altogether,  fifty  or 
sixty  will  probably  cover  the  total  of  those  who  suffered  in  various  ways. 

The  sanbenitos  of  the  convicts,  with  inscriptions,  were  hung  as  customary  in 
the  cathedral  and  remain  there  to  the  present  day  (Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  266). 
The  swords  of  the  murderers  are  still  to  be  seen  attached  to  the  pillars  near  the 
entrance  to  the  chancel  (V.  de  la  Fuente,  in  Oviedo's  Quinquagenas,  I,  73).  One 
of  the  latter  was  removed  in  1518,  by  order  of  Leo  X,  and  when  the  commissioner 
who  had  performed  the  act  died  shortly  afterward  it  was  popularly  regarded  as 
a  visitation  of  God  (Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Hacienda, 
Legajo  10). 


Chap.  V]  RAVAGES  OF  THE  INQUISITION  259 

The  Inquisition  thus  had  overcome  all  resistance  and  Aragon 
lay  at  its  mercy.  How  that  mercy  was  exercised  is  seen  in  the 
multitude  of  victims  from  among  the  principal  Converso  families 
which  were  almost  extinguished  by  the  stake  or  by  confiscation. 
The  names  of  Caballeria,  Sanchez,  Santangel,  Ram  and  others 
occur  with  wearying  repetition  in  the  lists  of  the  autos  de  fe. 
Thus  of  the  Santangel,  who  were  descended  from  the  convert 
Rabbi  Azarias  Ginillo,  Martin  de  Santangel  escaped  to  France 
and  was  burnt  in  efhgy;  Luis  de  Santangel,  who  had  been 
knighted  by  Juan  II  for  services  in  the  war  with  Catalonia,  was 
beheaded  and  burnt  as  we  have  seen.  His  cousin,  Luis  de  Sant- 
angel, Ferdinand's  financial  secretary,  who  advanced  to  Isabella 
the  16,000  or  17,000  ducats  to  enable  Columbus  to  discover  the 
New  World,  was  penanced  July  17,  1491.  He  still  continued  in 
the  royal  service  but  he  must  have  been  condemned  again  for, 
after  his  death,  about  1500,  Ferdinand  kindly  made  over  his  con- 
fiscated property  to  his  children,  including  a  thousand  ducats  of 
composition  for  the  confiscation  of  Micer  Tarancio.  There  was' 
yet  another  Luis  de  Santangel,  who  married  a  daughter  of  Juan 
Vidal,  also  a  victim  of  the  Inquisition,  and  who  finally  fled  with 
her  to  France,  after  which  he  was  burnt  in  effigy.  Juan  de  Sant- 
angel was  burnt  in  1486.  Juan  Tomas  de  Santangel  was  penanced, 
August  12,  1487.  A  brother  of  Juan  was  the  Zalmedina  de  Sant- 
angel who  fled  to  France  and  was  burnt  in  effigy  March  17,  1497. 
Gabriel  de  Santangel  was  condemned  in  1495.  Gisperte  and  Sal- 
vador de  Santangel  were  reconciled  at  Huesca  in  1499.  Leonardo 
de  Santangel  was  burnt  at  Huesca,  July  8,  1489,  and  his  mother 
two  days  afterwards.  Violante  de  Santangel  and  Simon  de  Sant- 
angel, with  Clara  his  wife,  were  reconciled  at  Huesca.  Micer  Miguel 
de  Santangel  of  Huesca  was  reconciled  March  1, 1489.^  To  estimate 
properly  this  terrible  list  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  "reconcilia- 
tion" involved  confiscation  and  disabilities  inflicted  on  descend- 
ants which  were  almost  equivalent  to  extinguishing  a  family.  In 
1513  Folsona,  wife  of  Alonso  de  Santangel,  petitioned  Ferdinand 
saying  that  her  husband,  Alonso  de  Santangel,  thirty  years  before, 
had  fled  from  the  Inquisition  and  his  property  had  been  confis- 
cated, leaving  her  in  poverty  with  four  young  children;  she  had 
withheld  eighty  libras  of  his  effects  and  had  spent  them ;  now  her 

'  Libro  Verde  (Revista,  CVI,  250-1). — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro 
1. — Arch,  gen.de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  100. — Garibay,  Compendio  historial, 
Lib.  XIX,  cap.  1. — Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  405. 


260  '^SE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

conscience  impelled  her  to  confess  this  and  to  sue  for  pardon, 
which  the  king  graciously  granted  "with  our  customary  clemency 
and  compassion,"  One  of  these  four  children  seems  to  be  an 
Augustin  de  Santangel  of  Barbastro,  son  of  Alonso,  who  as  late 
as  1556,  obtained  relief  from  the  disabilities  consequent  on  his 
father's  condemnation/ 

There  was  in  Aragon  no  Converse  house  more  powerful  than 
the  descendants  of  Alazar  Usuf  and  his  brothers  who  took  the 
name  of  Sanchez  and  furnished  many  officials  of  rank  such  as 
treasurer,  bayle,  dispensero  mayor,  etc.  Of  these,  between  1486 
and  1503,  there  were  burnt,  in  person  or  in  effigy,  Juan  de  Pedro 
Sanchez,  Micer  Alonso  Sanchez,  Angelina  Sanchez,  Brianda 
Sanchez,  Mossen  Anton  Sanchez,  Micer  Juan  Sanchez,  and,  among 
the  Tamarit,  with  whom  they  were  allied  by  marriage,  Leonor  de 
Tamarit  and  her  sister  Olalia,  Valentina  de  Tamarit  and  Beatriz 
de  Tamarit.  Of  the  same  family  there  were  penanced  Aldonza 
Sanchez,  Anton  Sanchez,  Juan  de  Juan  Sanchez,  Luis  de  Juan 
Sanchez,  Juan  Sanchez  the  jurist,  Martin  Sanchez,  Maria  San- 
chez and  Pedro  Sanchez.^  It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  examples 
of  what  was  going  on  in  Spain  during  those  dreadful  years,  for 
Aragon  was  exceptional  only  in  so  far  as  the  industrious  notary, 
Juan  de  Anchias,  kept  and  compiled  the  records  that  should  attest 
the  indelible  stain  on  descendants.  There  is  something  awful  in 
the  hideous  coolness  with  which  he  summarizes  the  lists  of  victims 
too  numerous  to  particularize:  "The  Gomez  of  Huesca  are  New 
Christians  and  many  of  them  have  been  abandoned  to  the  secular 
arm  and  many  others  have  been  reconciled";  "The  Zaportas  and 
Benetes  of  Monzon  .  .  .  many  of  them  have  been  con- 
demned and  abandoned  to  the  secular  arm."^ 


CATALONIA. 


Catalonia  had  of  old  been  even  more  intractable  than  her  sister 
kingdoms  and  fully  as  jealous  of  her  ancient  rights  and  liberties. 
The  Capitols  de  Cort,  or  fueros  granted  in  the  successive  Cortes, 
were  ordered  to  be  systematically  arranged  and  fairly  written 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libre  3,  fol.  237;  Libro  4,  fol.  223. 
'  Libro  Verde  (Revista,  CV,  568).         ^  Ibidem  (Revista,  CVI,  266,  269). 


Chap.  V]  RESISTANCE  261 

out  in  two  volumes,  one  in  Latin  and  the  other  in  Limosin;  these 
volumes  were  to  be  kept  in  the  Diputacion,  secured  by  chains  but 
open  to  the  public,  so  that  every  citizen  might  know  his  rights. 
Whenever  the  king  or  his  officials  violated  them  by  edict  or 
act,  the  Diputados — a  standing  committee  of  the  Cortes — were 
instructed  to  oppose  by  every  lawful  means  the  invasion  of  their 
liberties  until  the  obnoxious  measure  should  be  withdrawn/ 

Apparently  forewarned  as  to  Ferdinand's  designs,  Catalonia 
had  manifested  her  independence  by  refusing  to  send  representa- 
tives to  the  Cortes  of  Tarazona  in  January,  1484,  alleging  that  it 
was  illegal  to  summon  them  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the  prin- 
cipality.^ The  Catalans  had  thus  escaped  assenting  to  the  juris- 
diction of  Torquemada,  but  this  in  no  way  hindered  Ferdinand 
from  sending.  May  11th,  to  Juan  de  Medina,  his  receiver  of  con- 
fiscations at  Barcelona,  a  list  of  salaries  similar  to  that  drawn  up 
at  the  same  time  for  Saragossa,  although  the  names  of  appointees 
were  left  in  blank.^  The  citizens  met  this  by  sending  him  a  con- 
sulta  affirming  their  rights  and  meanwhile  prevented  the  old 
inquisitors  from  manifesting  any  increase  of  activity.  To  this 
Ferdinand  replied  from  Cordova,  August  4th,  expressing  his 
extreme  dissatisfaction.  They  need  not,  he  assured  them,  be 
alarmed  as  to  their  privileges  and  liberties,  for  the  Inquisition 
will  do  nothing  to  violate  them  and  will  use  no  cruelty  but  will 
treat  with  all  clemency  those  who  return  to  the  faith.  Further 
remonstrance,  he  adds,  will  be  useless  for  it  is  his  unchangeable  de- 
termination that  the  Inquisition  shall  perform  its  work  and  oppo- 
sition to  it  will  be  more  offensive  to  him  than  any  other  disservice.'* 

The  Catalans  were  obdurate  to  both  blandishments  and  threats. 
Barcelona  claimed,  as  a  special  privilege,  derived  directly  from  the 
Holy  See,  that  it  had  a  right  to  an  inquisitor  of  its  own  and  that 
it  could  not  be  subjected  to  an  inquisitor-general.  It  already  had 
its  inquisitor  in  the  person  of  Juan  Comte,  who  apparently  gave 
the  people  no  trouble  and  served  as  a  convenient  impediment  to 
the  extension  of  Torquemada's  jurisdiction,  especially  as  he  held 
a  papal  commission.  To  meet  this  obstacle  Ferdinand  wrote, 
October  12th,  to  his  ambassador  at  Rome,  that  the  inquisitors  were 
not  doing  their  duty,  wherefore  he  earnestly  requested  that,  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment,  further  power  be  granted  to  him  and  to 

*  Libre  dels  quatre  Senj^als,  cap.  xiv  (Barcelona,  1634,  p.  34). 

^  Zurita,  Anales,  Lib.  xx,  cap.  Ivi. 

8  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  16,  *  Ibidem,  fol.  24. 


262  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

Isabella  and  Torquemada  to  appoint  and  remove  at  pleasure 
officials  who  should  be  full  inquisitors  and  not  merely  commis- 
sioners, as  the  franchises  of  the  cities  provide  that  they  shall  not 
be  subjected  to  commissioners.^  The  Catalan  Converses  doubtless 
understood  how  to  counteract  with  the  curia  the  king's  desires, 
for  nine  months  later,  July  9,  1485,  Ferdinand  again  wrote  to  his 
auditor  apostolico  that  the  Inquisition  in  Aragon,  Catalonia  and 
Valencia  was  much  impeded  by  the  papal  commissions  granted 
to  Dominican  masters  of  theology' and  other  persons,  and  that  he 
must  at  once  procure  a  bull  revoking  all  conmiissions  to  act  as 
inquisitors,  especially  those  of  Fray  Juan  Comte  of  Barcelona 
and  Archdeacon  Mercader  of  Valencia;  Torquemada  must  have 
a  fresh  appointment  for  the  Aragonese  kingdoms  and  especially 
as  inquisitor  of  Barcelona,  with  faculty  to  subdelegate  his  powers.^ 
It  is  possible  that  Cardinal  Borgia's  interest  in  his  Vicar-general 
Mercader  neutralized  the  efforts  of  Ferdinand's  agents,  for  six 
months  passed  away  without  the  request  being  granted  and,  in 
January,  1486,  the  king  ventured  the  experiment  of  sending  two 
appointees  of  Torquemada,  the  Dominicans  Juan  Franco  and 
Guillen  Casells,  with  an  Executoria  pro  Inquisitorihus  apud  Cata- 
loniam,  addressed  to  all  the  officials,  who  were  ordered  under  pain 
of  five  thousand  gold  florins  to  receive  and  convey  them  safely, 
to  aid  them  in  their  work,  to  arrest  and  imprison  in  chains  whom- 
soever they  might  designate  and  to  inffict  due  punishment  on  all 
whom  they  might  abandon  to  the  secular  arm.^  This  energetic 
movement  was  as  fruitless  as  its  predecessors  and  some  weeks 
later  an  order  was  issued  to  the  inquisitors  at  Saragossa  to  reim- 
burse, from  the  pecuniary  penances  in  their  hands,  the  expenses 
of  the  cleric  who  had  been  sent  to  Barcelona  and  also  to  pay  fifty 
hbras  each  to  Esteban  Gago,  sent  there  as  alguazil  and  Jaime 
Millan  as  notary,  in  order  to  provide  for  their  support/  At  the 
same  time  Ferdinand  expressed  the  hope  that  the  Barcelonese 
tribunal  would  soon  be  in  working  order,  and  in  this  he  was  not 
wholly  disappointed. 

Innocent  VIII  yielded  at  last  and,  by  a  brief  of  February  6, 
1486,  under  pretext  that  they  had  been  too  zealous,  he  removed 


^  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  27.  This  request  was  repeated 
soon  afterward. — Ibidem,  fol.  45.  ^  Ibidem,  fol.  59. 

^  Ibidem,  fol.  72.  It  is  probably  to  this  attempt  that  may  be  attributed  a 
tumult  against  the  Inquisition  at  Lerida,  alluded  to  by  Llorente,  Anales,  I,  93. 

*  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  86.  89. 


Chap.  V]  BARCELONA  SUBMITS  263 

all  inquisitors  holding  papal  commissions— in  Aragon  Juan 
Colivera,  Juan  de  Epila,  Juan  Franco  and  Guillen  Casells,  in 
Valencia  Juan  Orts  and  Mateo  Mercader  and  in  Barcelona  Juan 
Comte;  he  appointed  Torquemada  as  special  inquisitor  for  Barce- 
lona, with  power  of  subdelegation  and,  apparently  to  prepare  for 
expected  resistance,  he  authorized  the  Bishops  of  Cordova  and 
Leon  and  the  Abbot  of  St,  Emelian  of  Burgos  to  suppress  all  oppo- 
sition, especially  on  the  part  of  Juan  Comte,  while  he  expressly 
set  aside  the  privileges  of  the  city/  In  spite  of  this  formidable 
missive  nearly  eighteen  months  elapsed  before  Barcelona  was 
reduced  to  submission,  and  Torquemada's  final  appointee,  Alonso 
de  Espina,  was  able  to  enter  the  city.  When  at  last  he  succeeded, 
July  5,  1487,  we  are  told  that  the  Lieutenant-general  of  the  Prin- 
cipahty,  the  Bishops  of  Urgel,  Tortosa  and  Gerona  and  many 
gentlemen  and  citizens  sallied  forth  to  greet  him,  but  there  is  no 
mention  made  of  the  Diputados,  or  the  local  magistracy,  or  the 
canons  joining  in  the  reception,  and  it  was  not  until  July  30th  that 
the  municipal  officials  took  the  oath  of  obedience  to  him/ 

He  probably  still  found  obstacles  in  his  path,  for  it  was  not  until 
December  14th  that  the  first  procession  of  penitents  took  place, 
consisting  only  of  twenty-one  men  and  twenty-nine  women,  fol- 
lowed, a  week  later,  by  another  in  which  the  participants  were 
scourged/  The  smallness  of  these  numbers,  as  the  result  of  five 
months'  work,  showed  that  the  Edict  of  Grace  had  met  an  ungrate- 
ful response  and  the  first  public  auto,  celebrated  January  25, 
1488,  furnished  only  four  hving  victims  and  the  eflSgies  of  twelve 
fugitives.  As  already  remarked  elsewhere,  the  fear  spread  abroad 
by  the  advent  of  the  Inquisition,  after  so  long  a  struggle,  caused 
the  greater  part  of  those  who  had  reason  for  fear  to  seek  safety 
in  flight,  in  spite  of  the  edicts  forbidding  expatriation.  During  the 
whole  of  the  year  1488  the  number  of  burnings  amounted  only  to 
seven  and  in  1489  there  were  but  three.  It  was  doubtless  owing 
to  the  lukewarmness  of  the  local  magistracy  that,  in  the  earlier 
autos,  the  sufferers  were  spared  the  extreme  penalty  of  concrema- 
tion  and  were  mercifully  strangled  before  the  pile  was  lighted.* 

^  Archivio  Vaticano,  Regest.  685  (Innoc.  VIII),  fol.  346.  Cf.  Bibl.  nacional, 
Seccion  de  MSS.,  D,  118,  p.  92.— Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I,  fol.  31. 

2  Manuall  de  Novells  Ardits,  III,  58,  61  (Barcelona,  1894). 

'  Ibidem,   III,  66. 

*  Carbonell  de  Gestis  Hsereticonim  (Coleccion  de  Doc.  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon, 
XXVIII,  13,  16,  29). 


264  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

In  fact,  a  royal  cedula  of  March  15,  1488,  ordering  afresh  all 
officials  to  render  aid  and  support  to  the  Inquisition,  under  penalty 
of  two  thousand  florins,  would  seem  to  argue  no  little  slackness  on 
their  part/ 

The  jurisdiction  of  the  tribunal  of  Barcelona  was  extensive, 
comprehending  the  dioceses  of  Barcelona,  Tarragona,  Vich, 
Gerona,  Lerida,  Urgel  and  Elna;  the  inquisitors  were  industrious 
and  visited  many  portions  of  their  territory,  for  we  have  record, 
during  the  remainder  of  the  century,  of  autos  de  f e  held  in  Tarra- 
gona, Gerona,  Perpignan,  Balaguer  and  Lerida,  but  as  late  as 
November  18,  1500,  Ferdinand  complains  that  in  Rosellon  the 
Inquisition  had  not  yet  been  put  fairly  in  operation  and  that  no 
effort  had  been  made  to  secure  the  confiscations.^ 

The  imperiousness  with  which  the  inquisitors  exercised  their 
authority  to  break  the  independent  spirit  of  the  Catalans  is  well 
illustrated  by  a  trifling  but  significant  incident  in  1494.  The  city 
of  Tarragona  had  established  a  quarantine  against  Barcelona  on 
account  of  pestilence.  On  June  18th  the  inquisitor,  Antonio  de 
Contreras,  with  all  his  officials,  presumably  fleeing  from  the  pest, 
presented  himself  at  the  gates  and  demanded  admittance.  The 
vicar-general  of  the  archbishop,  the  canons  and  the  royal  and 
local  officials  came  to  meet  him  and  explained  the  situation,  ask- 
ing him  to  remain  in  some  convenient  place  in  the  neighborhood 
for  some  days.  His  reply  was  to  give  them  the  delay  of  three 
Misereres  in  which  to  open  their  gates  under  pain  of  major  excom- 
munication and  interdict,  whereupon  they  left  him,  after  inter- 
jecting an  appeal  to  the  Holy  See.  He  recited  the  Miserere  thrice, 
commanded  his  notary  to  knock  at  the  gate  and  then  fulminated 
his  censures,  with  an  additional  order  that  no  notary  but  his  own 
should  make  record  of  the  affair.  He  then  withdrew  to  the  neigh- 
boring Dominican  convent,  whence  he  sent  his  excommunication 
to  be  affixed  to  the  town-gates.  While  at  supper,  Ciprian  Corte,  a 
scrivener,  came  and  served  him  with  a  notice  of  the  appeal  to 
Rome  and  was  seized  and  confined  in  the  convent  prison.  During 
the  night  the  vicar-general  with  a  crowd  of  citizens  surrounded 
the  convent  in  a  fashion  so  threatening  that  the  scrivener  was 
released.  It  was  not  until  July  18th  that  the  inquisitor  entered 
Tarragona,  when  he  suspended  the  excommunication  and  inter- 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  26. 
»  Carbonell,  pp.  36,  39,  40,  52,  83,  85,  137,  139,  140,  148,  149.— Archive  de 
Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  1. 


Chap.  V]  SUPREMACY  OF  THE  INQUISITION  265 

diet  and  took  testimony  as  to  the  affair,  banishing  a  man  who 
said  that  Vich  had  similarly  refused  to  break  a  quarantine  for  an 
inquisitor.  Finally,  on  September  5th  all  the  dignitaries,  eccle- 
siastical and  secular,  with  the  leading  citizens,  were  assembled 
in  the  chapel  of  the  chapter,  in  presence  of  the  inquisitor  and  of 
Don  Juan  de  Lanuza,  the  Lieutenant-general  of  Catalonia.  There 
they  humbly  begged  for  pardon  and  absolution  and  offered  to 
undergo  any  penance  that  he  might  inflict ;  he  made  them  swear 
obedience  to  him  and  appointed  the  following  Sunday  for  the 
penance,  when  they  were  all  obliged  to  attend  mass  as  penitents, 
with  lighted  candles  in  their  hands,  thus  incurring  an  indelible 
stigma  on  themselves  and  their  posterity.^ 

Men  who  wielded  their  awful  and  irresponsible  power  in  this 
arbitrary  fashion  were  not  to  be  restrained  by  law  or  custom  and 
from  their  tyranny  there  was  no  appeal  save  to  the  king,  who 
was  resolved  that  no  one  but  himself  should  check  them.  He 
had  already,  by  a  cedula  of  March  26,  1488,  forbidden  all  secular 
officials,  from  the  lieutenant-general  down,  from  taking  cogni- 
zance of  anything  concerning  the  subordinates  and  familiars  of  the 
Holy  Office,  under  penalty  of  the  royal  wrath  and  a  fine  of  two 
thousand  florins  and  when,  in  1505,  the  Diputados  of  Catalonia 
were  involved  in  some  trifling  quarrel  with  the  inquisitors  and 
represented  to  Ferdinand  that  their  jurisdiction  was  in  deroga- 
tion of  the  constitution  of  the  land,  he  sternly  replied  that  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  faith  and  the  execution  of  its  sentences  per- 
tained to  the  Inquisition;  that  this  jurisdiction  was  supreme  over 
all  others  and  that  there  was  no  fuero  or  law  that  could  obstruct 
it.^  This  fateful  declaration  became  practically  engrafted  upon 
Spanish  public  law. 

It  was  impossible  that  such  irresponsible  power  should  not  be 
abused  and  there  speedily  commenced  a  series  of  complaints  from 
the  Catalan  authorities  which,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  continued 
with  little  intermission  until  the  revolt  of  1640.  At  the  present 
time,  however,  Ferdinand  showed  a  disposition  to  curb  the  abuses 
inevitable  under  the  system  and,  in  letters  of  August  16th  and 
20th  and  September  3,  1502,  to  the  inquisitors  of  Barcelona,  he 
enclosed  a  memorial  from  the  Diputados  of  Catalonia,  accom- 
panying it  with  a  severe  rebuke.  The  chief  source  of  complaint 
was  that  the  receiver  of  confiscations  bought  up  claims  and  prose- 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  927,  fol.  303. 

2  Ibidem,  Libro  2,  fol.  19.— MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130. 


266  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

cuted  them  through  the  irresistible  machinery  of  the  tribunal. 
In  a  sample  instance  Franci  Ballester  made  over  to  the  receiver 
for  100  libras  a  debt  of  228  due  by  Juan  de  Trillo  which  was  then 
collected  through  the  Inquisition.  Ferdinand  said  that  he  had 
frequently  forbidden  this  practice  and  he  ordered  the  inquisitors 
to  excommunicate  the  receiver  if  he  persisted  in  it.  The  receiver 
then  contented  himself  with  a  smaller  profit  and  proceeded,  in  the 
case  of  the  confiscated  estate  of  a  certain  Mahul,  to  collect  from  it 
debts  for  a  commission  of  ten  per  cent.,  whereby  the  creditors 
with  the  weakest  claims  got  most  of  the  money.  Again  Ferdinand 
prohibited  this,  September  9th,  ordering  all  funds  to  be  paid  in 
to  the  tahla  of  Barcelona,  for  equitable  distribution  among  the 
creditors  and  all  commissions  to  be  refunded.^  At  the  same  time 
there  was  no  talk  of  the  only  effective  way  of  cutting  up  these 
practices  by  the  roots — that  of  discharging  the  knavish  receiver. 
This  tenderness  for  official  malfeasance  continued  throughout  the 
career  of  the  Inquisition  and  prevented  any  effective  reform. 


THE  BALEARIC  ISLES. 

Majorca  claimed  to  be  a  separate  and  independent  kingdom, 
governed  by  its  own  customs  and  only  united  dynastically  wdth 
Catalonia.  In  1439  it  complained  that  its  franchises  were  vio- 
lated by  the  queen-regent  when  she  summoned  citizens  to  appear 
before  her  on  the  mainland,  for  they  were  entitled  to  be  tried 
nowhere  but  at  home,  and  her  husband  Alfonso  V  admitted  the 
justice  of  this  and  promised  its  observance  for  the  future.^  The 
frequent  repetition  of  this  privilege  shows  how  highly  it  was 
prized  and  it  rendered  necessary  a  separate  tribunal  for  the  Bal- 
earic Isles.  This  had  long  been  in  operation  under  the  old  insti- 
tution and  the  inquisitor  at  this  period  was  Fray  Nicolas  Merola 
who  was  as  inert  as  his  brethren  elsewhere.  The  records  of  his 
office  show  that  under  him  there  were  no  relaxations;  that  in 
1478  there  were  four  Judaizers  reconciled;  in  1480,  one;  in 
1482,  two  and  in  1486,  one.     He  was  probably  stimulated  to 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libre  2,  fol.  5,  7,  10;  Libro  13,  fol.  385, 
386. 

*  Ordinacions  del  Regne  de  Mallorca,  pp.  64,  85,  372-3  (Mallorca,  1663). 


Chap.  V]  THE  BALEARIC  ISLES  267 

greater  energy  by  the  prospect  of  removal,  for  in  1487  the  number 
increased  to  eight/ 

It  was  not  until  the  following  year,  1488,  that  the  new  Inquisi- 
tion was  introduced,  when  Fray  Merola  was  replaced  by  the 
doctors  Pedro  Perez  de  Munebrega  and  Sancho  Martin.^  Their 
Edict  of  Grace  was  so  successful  that  three  hundred  and  thirty- 
eight  persons  came  forward,  confessed  and  were  reconciled, 
August  18,  1488,  in  addition  to  sixteen  reconciled,  August  13th, 
after  trial.  Evidently  the  prosperous  Converso  population  recog- 
nized that  the  new  institution  was  vastly  more  efficient  than  the 
old.  There  must  undoubtedly  have  been  some  popular  efferves- 
cence, of  which  the  details  have  not  reached  us,  for  the  inquisitors 
were  removed  and  replaced  by  a  native,  Fray  Juan  Ramon,  but, 
if  the  change  calmed  the  agitation  it  did  not  diminish  the  activity 
of  the  tribunal,  for  the  records  of  the  year  1489  show  seven  autos 
in  which  there  were  ten  reconciliations,  forty-four  relaxations  in 
effigy,  one  of  bones  exhumed  and  six  in  person.  A  momentary 
pause  followed,  for,  in  1490,  we  find  only  the  reconciliation  of 
ninety-six  penitents,  March  26th,  under  the  Edict  of  Grace. 
Then,  in  1491,  another  Edict  was  published,  of  which,  on  July 
10th  and  30th,  a  hundred  and  thirty-four  persons  availed  them- 
selves, besides  two  hundred  and  ninety  of  those  already  recon- 
ciled in  1488  and  1490,  who  had  relapsed  and  were  readmitted  as 
a  special  mercy.  In  addition  to  these  the  records  of  1491  show 
numerous  autos  in  which  there  were  fifty-seven  reconciliations, 
eighteen  relaxations  in  effigy  and  eighteen  in  person.  As  else- 
where, the  delay  in  introducing  the  new  Inquisition  had  given 
opportunity  for  flight  and  for  some  years  the  chief  business  of  the 
tribunal  was  the  condemnation  of  fugitives.  Thus,  in  an  auto  of 
May  11,  1493,  there  were  but  three  relaxations  in  person  to  forty- 
seven  in  effigy  and,  in  one  of  June  14,  1497,  there  was  no  living 
victim,  the  bones  of  one  were  burnt  and  the  effigies  of  fifty-nine.' 

As  usual  these  proceedings  against  the  dead  and  absent  were 
productive  of  abundant  confiscations  and  the  fears  of  descendants 
were  thoroughly  aroused  lest  some  aberration  of  an  ancestor 
should  be  discovered  which  would  sweep  away  their  fortunes. 
This  gave  rise  to  the  expedient  of  compositions,  of  which  we  shall 
see  more  hereafter,  as  a  sort  of  insurance  against  confiscation. 

•  Historia  general  del  Reyno  de  Mallorca,  III,  362  (Palma,  1841). — Archive 
de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  595. 
^  Hist.  gen.  de  Mallorca,  III,  363.  '  Archive  de  Simancas,  uhi  sup. 


268  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON  [Book  I 

In  the  present  case  a  letter  from  Ferdinand,  January  28,  1498, 
to  the  inquisitor  and  the  receiver  announces  that  these  people 
are  coming  forward  with  offers  and  he  orders  the  officials  to  make 
just  and  reasonable  bargains  with  them  and  report  to  him,  when 
he  will  decide  what  is  most  to  his  advantage.  In  this  and  other 
ways  the  operations  of  the  tribunal  were  beginning  to  bring  in 
more  than  its  expenses,  for,  February  2,  1499,  there  is  an  order 
given  on  the  receiver  Matheo  de  Morrano  to  pay  to  the  receiver 
of  Valencia  two  hundred  gold  ducats  to  cancel  some  debts  that 
were  pressing  on  the  royal  conscience,  followed  soon  after  by 
other  orders  to  pay  four  hundred  and  fifty  ducats  to  the  royal 
treasury  and  fifty  florins  to  the  nunnery  of  Santa  Clara  of  Calata- 
yud.  The  confiscating  zeal  of  the  officials  was  stimulated,  Feb- 
ruary 21,  1498,  by  an  allowance  to  Morrano  of  three  thousand 
sueldos,  in  addition  to  his  salary,  in  reward  of  his  eminent  ser- 
vices and  another,  March  2d,  of  a  hundred  libras  mallorquines  to 
the  notary  Pere  Prest.  It  was  not  always  easy  to  trace  the  prop- 
erty which  the  unfortunates  naturally  sought  to  conceal  and  a 
liberal  offer  of  fifty  per  cent,  was  made  to  informers  who  should 
reveal  or  discover  it.^ 

It  was  as  difficult  to  reconcile  the  Mallorquins  as  the  Catalans 
to  the  new  Inquisition.  In  1517  the  Suprema  was  obliged  to 
order  the  viceroy  not  to  maltreat  the  officials  or  obstruct  them 
in  the  performance  of  their  duty,  and  at  the  same  time,  the  inquis- 
itors were  instructed  to  proceed  against  him  if  he  did  not  cease  to 
trouble  them.  Apparently  he  cUd  not  heed  the  warning  for,  in 
1518,  the  inquisitor  was  formally  commanded  to  prosecute  him. 
What  followed  we  have  no  means  of  knowing,  but  apparently  the 
viceroy  had  full  popular  sympathy,  for  soon  afterwards  there  was 
a  rising,  led  by  the  Bishop  of  Elna,  whose  parents  had  been  con- 
demned by  the  tribunal.  The  inquisitor  fled  and  the  populace  was 
about  to  burn  the  building  and  the  records,  when  the  firmness  of 
the  Bishop  of  Majorca,  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  suppressed  the 
tumult.  It  was  probably  this  disturbance  that  called  forth,  in 
1520,  an  adjuration  from  the  Suprema  to  the  viceroy  and  the 
ecclesiastical  and  secular  authorities,  not  to  permit  the  ill-treat- 
ment of  the  inquisitor  and  other  officials.  It  was  impossible, 
however,  to  preserve  the  peace  and,  in  1530,  we  find  the  viceroy, 
his  assessor  and  officials,  under  excommunication  as  the  result 


^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  1. 


Chap.  V]  DISCONTENT  269 

of  a  competencia  or  conflict  of  jurisdiction.  Even  more  significant 
was  the  imprisonment  and  trial,  in  1534,  of  the  regent  or  president 
of  the  royal  high  court  of  justice,  resulting  in  the  imposition,  in 
1537,  of  a  fine  so  excessive  that  the  Suprema  ordered  its  reduc- 
tion.^ This  was  but  the  beginning,  and  we  shall  see  hereafter  how 
perpetual  were  the  embroilments  of  the  tribunal  with  both  the 
civil  and  the  ecclesiastical  authorities. 


With  more  or  less  resistance  the  new  Inquisition  was  thus 
imposed  on  the  various  provinces  subject  to  the  crown  of  Aragon. 
The  pretence  put  forward  to  secure  its  introduction,  that  it  in  no 
way  violated  thefueros  and  liberties  of  the  land,  was  soon  dropped 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  boldlj^  pronounced  to  be  superior  to 
all  law.  For  awhile  this  was  submitted  to  in  silence,  but  the  ever- 
encroaching  arrogance  of  the  officials,  their  extension  of  their 
jurisdiction  over  matters  unconnected  with  the  faith  and  their 
abuse  of  their  irresponsible  prerogatives  aroused  opposition  which 
at  length  found  opportunity  for  expression.  In  1510  the  repre- 
sentatives of  Aragon,  Catalonia  and  Valencia  were,  for  the  first 
time,  assembled  together  in  the  Cortes  of  Monzon.  They  came 
with  effusive  enthusiasm,  stimulated  by  the  conquest  of  Oran 
and  Algiers  and  the  desire  to  retrieve  the  disaster  of  Gerbes  and 
they  voted  for  Ferdinand  the  unprecedented  servicio  or  tax-levy 
of  five  hundred  thousand  libras,  obtaining  in  return  the  abolition 
of  the  Santa  Hermandad.^  Yet  even  this  enthusiasm  did  not  pre- 
vent murmurs  of  discontent,  and  complaints  were  made  that  the 
Inquisition  assumed  jurisdiction  over  cases  of  usury,  blasphemy, 
bigamy,  necromancy  and  the  like  and  that  the  privileges  and 
exemptions  enjoyed  by  the  officials  led  to  their  unnecessary  mul- 
tiplication, rendering  the  tribunals  oppressive  to  those  who  bore 
the  burdens  of  the  state.  Ferdinand  eluded  reform  by  promising 
it  for  the  future  and  the  Cortes  were  dissolved  without  positive 
action.^  When  they  next  met  at  Monzon,  in  1512,  they  were  in  a 
less  confiding  mood  and  it  is  probable  that  popular  agitation  must 
have  assumed  a  threatening  aspect,  sufficient  to  compel  Ferdinand 


1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  72,  P.  ii,  fol.  6,  7,  121,  125;  Libro  73, 
fol.  116-171;  Libro  77,  fol.  228;  Libro  78,  fol.  60.— Pdramo,  pp.  217-18. 
*  Zurita,  Hist,  del  Rey  Hernando,  Lib.  ix,  cap.  xiv. 
^  Llorente,  Anales,  II,  11. 


270  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON  [Book  I 

to  yield  to  their  demands.  An  elaborate  series  of  articles  was 
drawn  up,  or  rather  two,  one  for  Aragon  and  the  other  for  Cata- 
lonia, nearly  identical  in  character,  which  received  the  royal 
assent.  It  is  significant  that,  with  the  exception  of  a  clause  as  to 
appeals,  these  articles  do  not  concern  themselves  with  the  prose- 
cution of  heresy  but  are  confined  to  the  excesses  with  which  the 
tribunals  and  their  underhngs  afflicted  the  faithful. 

The  reform  demanded  by  Catalonia  embraced  thirty-four 
articles,  a  few  of  which  may  serve  to  suggest  the  abuses  that  had 
grown  so  rankly.  An  especial  grievance  was  the  multiplication 
of  officials — not  only  those  engaged  in  the  work  of  the  tribunal 
but  the  unsalaried  familiars  scattered  everywhere  and  the  ser- 
vants and  slaves  of  all  concerned,  who  all  claimed  the  juero,  or 
jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition,  with  numerous  privileges  and 
exemptions  that  rendered  them  a  most  undesirable  element  in 
society.  It  was  demanded  that  the  number  of  familiars  in  Cata- 
lonia should  be  reduced  to  thirty-four,  whose  names  should  be 
made  known ;  that  under  the  guise  of  servants  should  be  included 
only  those  actually  resident  with  their  masters  or  employers; 
that  no  one  guilty  of  a  grave  offence  should  be  appointed  to 
office;  that  the  privilege  of  carrying  arms  should  be  restricted  to 
those  who  bore  commissions,  in  default  of  which  they  could  be 
disarmed  like  other  citizens;  that  the  claim  to  exemption  from 
local  taxes  and  imposts  be  abandoned;  that  officials  caught  f.ag- 
rante  delicto  in  crime  sb.ould  be  subject  to  arrest  by  secular  officials 
without  subjecting  the  latter  to  prosecution;  that  civil  suits 
should  be  tried  by  the  court  of  the  defendant;  that  the  common 
clause  in  contracts  by  which  one  party  subjected  himself  to  what- 
ever court  the  other  might  name  should  be  held  not  to  include  the 
Inquisition;  that  the  rule  forbidding  officials  to  engage  in  trade 
should  be  enforced;  that  officials  buying  claims  or  property  in 
litigation  should  not  transfer  the  cases  to  the  Inquisition,  nor 
use  it  to  collect  their  rents ;  that  inquisitors  should  not  issue  safe- 
conducts  except  to  witnesses  coming  to  testify;  that  in  cases  of 
confiscation,  when  the  convict  had  been  reputed  a  good  Christian, 
parties  who  had  bought  property  from  him,  had  paid  their  debts 
to  him  or  had  redeemed  rent-charges,  should  not  lose  the  property 
or  be  obliged  to  pay  the  debts  a  second  time;  that  the  dowry  of  a 
Catholic  wife  should  not  be  confiscated  because  her  father  or 
husband  should  be  subsequently  convicted  of  heresy ;  that  posses- 
sion for  thirty  years  by  a  good  Catholic  should  bar  confiscation  of 


Chap.  V]  THE  CONCORDIA  OF  MONZON  271 

property  formerly  owned  by  those  now  convicted  of  heresy  and 
that  the  inquisitors  should  not  elude  this  prescription  of  time  by 
deducting  periods  of  war,  of  minority,  of  ignorance  of  the  fisc 
and  other  similar  devices;  that  the  inquisitors  should  withdraw 
their  decree  prohibiting  all  deaUngs  with  Conversos,  which  was 
not  only  a  serious  restraint  of  trade  but  involved  much  danger 
to  individuals  acting  through  ignorance.  As  regards  the  exten- 
sion of  jurisdiction  over  subjects  unconnected  with  heresy,  the 
Inquisition  was  not  in  future  to  take  cognizance  of  usury,  bigamy, 
blasphemy,  and  sorcery  except  in  cases  inferring  erroneous  belief. 
Remaining  under  excommunication  for  a  year  involved  suspicion 
of  heresy  and  the  Edict  of  Faith  required  the  denunciation  of  all 
such  cases  to  the  Inquisition,  but  as  there  were  innumerable 
decrees  of  ijpso  facto  excommunications  and  others  which  were 
privately  issued,  it  was  impossible  to  know  who  was  or  was  not 
under  the  ban,  wherefore  the  tribunal  was  not  to  take  action  except 
in  cases  where  the  censure  had  been  publicly  announced.  The 
extent  to  which  the  inquisitors  had  carried  their  arbitrary  assump- 
tion of  authority  is  indicated  by  an  article  forbidding  them  in 
the  future  from  interfering  with  the  Diputados  of  Catalonia  or 
their  officials  in  matters  pertaining  to  their  functions  and  the 
rights  of  the  State  and  in  the  imposts  of  the  cities,  towns,  and 
villages.  The  only  reform  proposed  as  to  procedure  is  an  article 
providing  that  appeals  may  lie  from  the  local  tribunal  to  the 
inquisitor-general  and  Suprema,  with  suspension  of  sentences 
until  they  are  heard.  But  there  is  a  hideous  suggestiveness  in 
the  provision  that,  when  perjured  testimony  has  led  to  the  execu- 
tion of  an  innocent  man,  the  inquisitors  shall  do  justice  and  shall 
not  prevent  the  king  from  punishing  the  false  witnesses. 

The  independence  of  the  Inquisition,  as  an  impernim  in  imperio, 
is  exhibited  in  the  fact  that  its  acceptance  was  deemed  necessary 
to  each  individual  article,  an  acceptance  expressed  by  the  sub- 
scription to  each  of  Plau  a  su  Reverendissima  senyoria,  the  sen- 
yoria  being  that  of  Inquisitor-general  Enguera.  To  confirm  this 
he  and  the  inquisitors  were  required  to  swear  in  a  manner  exhibit- 
ing the  profound  distrust  entertained  of  them.  The  oath  was 
to  observe  each  and  every  article;  it  was  to  be  taken  as  a  public 
act  before  a  notary  of  the  Inquisition,  who  was  to  attest  it  offi- 
cially and  deliver  it  to  the  president  of  the  Cortes,  and  authentic 
copies  were  to  be  supplied  at  the  price  of  five  sueldos  to  all 
demanding  them.     All  future  inquisitors,   whether  general   or 


272  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

local,  were  to  take  the  same  oath  on  assuming  ofRce  and  all  this 
was  repeated  in  various  formulas  so  as  to  leave  no  loop-hole  for 
equivocation.  Ferdinand  also  took  an  oath  promising  to  obtain 
from  the  pope  orders  that  all  inquisitors,  present  and  future, 
should  observe  the  articles  and  also  that,  whenever  requested  by 
the  Cortes,  the  Diputados  or  the  councillors  of  Barcelona,  he 
would  issue  the  necessary  letters  and  provisions  for  their  enforce- 
ment/ This  was  the  first  of  the  agreements  which  became  known 
as  Concordias — adjustments  between  the  popular  demands  and 
the  claims  of  the  Holy  Office.  We  shall  have  frequent  occasion 
to  hear  of  them  in  the  future,  for  they  were  often  broken  and 
renewed  and  fresh  sources  of  quarrel  were  never  lacking.  The 
present  one  was  not  granted  without  a  binding  consideration,  for 
the  tribunal  of  Barcelona  was  granted  six  hundred  libras  a  year, 
secured  upon  the  public  revenues.^ 

If  the  Catalans  distrusted  the  good  faith  of  king  and  inquisitor- 
general  they  were  not  without  justification,  for  the  elaborate 
apparatus  of  oaths  proved  a  flimsy  restraint  on  those  who  would 
endure  no  limitation  on  their  arbitrary  and  irresponsible  author- 
ity. At  first  Ferdinand  manifested  a  desire  to  uphold  the  Con- 
cordia and  to  restrain  the  inquisitors  who  commenced  at  once  to 
violate  it.  The  city  of  Perpignan  complained  that  the  prescription 
of  time  was  disregarded  and  that  the  duplicate  payment  of  old 
debts  was  demanded,  whereupon  Ferdinand  wrote,  October  24, 
1512,  sharply  ordering  the  strict  observance  of  the  terms  agreed 
upon  and  the  revocation  of  any  acts  contravening  them.^  Before 
long  however  his  policy  changed  and  he  sought  relief.  For 
potentates  who  desired  to  commit  a  deliberate  breach  of  faith 
there  was  always  the  resource  of  the  authority  of  the  Holy  See 
which,  among  its  miscellaneous  attributes,  had  long  assumed  that 
of  releasing  from  inconvenient  engagements  those  who  could 
command  its  favor,  and  Ferdinand's  power  in  Italy  was  too  great 
to  permit  of  the  refusal  of  so  trifling  a  request.  Accordingly  on 
April  30,  1513,  Leo  X  issued  a  motu  proprio  dispensing  Ferdinand 

'  Capitols  concedits  y  decretats  per  lo  Reverendissim  don  Juan  Bisbe  de 
Leyda  e  inquisidor  general  a  supplicatio  dels  tres  staments  de  Cathalunya 
convocats  en  los  Corts  de  Montso  ha  2  de  Agost,  1512  (Pragmaticas  y  altres  Drets 
de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i,  Tit,  viii,  cap.  1;  Lib.  i,  Tit.  ix,  cap.  3,  ?  6.  Barcelona, 
1589). 

The  articles  agreed  upon  for  Aragon  are  given  by  Llorente,  Anales,  II,  19. 

'  Capitols  y  Actes  de  Cort.  fol.  xxviii  (Barcelona,  1603). 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  200. 


Chap.  V]  MEBCADEB'S  INSTRUCTIONS 


273 


and  Bishop  Enguera  from  their  oaths  to  observe  the  Concordia  of 
Monzon.^ 

The  popular  demands,  however,  had  been  too  emphatically 
asserted  to  be  altogether  ignored  and  an  attempt  was  made  to 
satisfy  them  by  a  series  of  instructions  drawn  up,  under  date  of 
August  28,  1514,  by  Bishop  Luis  Mercader  of  Tortosa,  who  had 
succeeded  Enguera  as  inquisitor-general.  These  comprised  many 
of  the  reforms  in  the  Concordia,  modified  somewhat  to  suit 
inquisitorial  views,  as,  for  instance,  the  number  of  armed  familiars 
permitted  for  Barcelona  was  twenty-five,  with  ten  each  for  other 
cities.  ^  From  Valladolid,  September  10th,  Ferdinand  despatched 
these  instructions  by  Fernando  de  Montemayor,  Archdeacon  of 
Almazan,  who  was  going  to  Barcelona  as  visitor  or  inspector  of 
the  tribunal.  It  was  not  until  December  11th  that  they  were 
read  in  Barcelona  in  presence  of  the  inquisitors  and  of  representa- 
tives of  Catalonia.  The  latter  demanded  time  for  their  considera- 
tion and  a  copy  was  given  to  them.  Another  meeting  was  held, 
January  10,  1515,  and  a  third  on  January  25th,  in  which  the 
instructions  were  published  and  the  inquisitors  promised  to  obey 
them.  There  is  no  record  that  the  Catalans  accepted  them  as  a 
fulfilment  of  the  Concordia  and,  if  they  were  asked  to  do  so,  it  was 
merely  as  a  matter  of  poUcy.  In  a  letter  of  January  4th  to  the 
archdeacon,  Ferdinand  assumes  that  the  assent  of  the  Catalans 
was  a  matter  of  indifference;  the  instructions  were  to  be  pub- 
lished without  further  parley  and  no  reference  to  Rome  was 
requisite  as  the  privileges  of  the  Inquisition  were  not  curtailed 
by  them.^ 

Subsequent  Cortes  were  held  at  Monzon  and  Lerida,  where  the 
popular  dissatisfaction  found  expression  in  further  complaints 
and  demands,  leading  to  some  concessions  on  the  part  of  Ferdi- 
nand. The  temper  of  the  people  was  rising  and  manifested  itself 
in  occasional  assaults,  sometimes  fatal,  on  inquisitorial  officials, 
to  facilitate  the  punishment  of  which  Leo  X,  by  a  brief  of  January 
28,  1515,  authorized  inquisitors  to  try  such  delinquents  and  hand 
them  over  to  the  secular  arm  for  execution,  without  incurring  the 
"irregularity"  consequent  on  judgements  of  blood.^    Ferdinand 

*  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  I,  fol.  137.  Confirmed  by  a  second 
and  fuller  one,  September  2,  1513.— Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro 
921,  fol.  21,  23. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  933;  Libro  3,  fol.  316. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  323,  456. — Parecer  del  Doctor 
Martin  Real  (MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130). 

18 


274  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

was  too  shrewd  to  provoke  his  subjects  too  far;  he  recognized  that 
the  overbearing  arrogance  of  the  inquisitors  and  their  illegal 
extension  of  their  authority  gave  great  offence,  even  to  the  well- 
affected,  and  he  was  ready  to  curb  their  petulance.  A  case  occur- 
ring in  May,  1515,  shows  how  justifiable  were  the  popular  com- 
plaints and  gave  him  opportunity  to  administer  a  severe  rebuke. 
It  was  the  law  in  Aragon  that,  when  the  Diputados  appointed  any 
one  as  lieutenant  to  the  Justicia,  if  he  refused  to  serve  they  were 
to  remove  his  name  from  the  lists  of  those  eligible  to  public  office. 
A  certain  Micer  Manuel,  so  appointed,  refused  to  serve  and  to 
escape  the  penalty  procured  from  the  inquisitors  of  Saragossa 
letters  prohibiting,  under  pain  of  excommunication,  the  Diputados 
from  striking  off  his  name.  This  arbitrary  interference  with 
public  affairs  gave  great  offence  and  Ferdinand  sharply  told  the 
inquisitors  not  to  meddle  with  matters  that  in  no  way  concerned 
their  office;  the  Diputados  were  under  oath  to  execute  the  law 
and  the  letters  must  be  at  once  revoked.^  Finally  he  recognized 
that  the  demands  of  the  Cortes  of  Monzon  had  been  justified  and 
that  he  had  done  wrong  in  violating  the  Concordia  of  1512.  One 
of  his  latest  acts  was  a  cedula  of  December  24,  1515,  announcing 
to  the  inquisitors  that  he  had  applied  to  the  Holy  See  for  con- 
firmation of  the  agreements  made  and  sworn  to  in  the  Cortes  of 
Monzon  and  Lerida;  there  was  no  doubt  that  this  would  speedily 
be  granted,  wherefore  he  straitly  commanded,  under  pain  of  for- 
feiture of  office,  that  the  articles  must  not  be  violated  in  any 
manner,  direct  or  indirect,  but  must  be  observed  to  the  letter; 
the  inquisitor-general  had  agreed  to  this  and  would  swear  to  com- 
ply with  the  bull  when  it  should  come.^ 

Ferdinand  died  January  23, 1516,  followed  in  June  by  Inquisitor- 
general  Mercader.  Leo  X  probably  waited  to  learn  whether  the 
new  monarch  Charles  desired  to  continue  the  policy  of  his  grand- 
father. It  is  true  that  he  had  dispensed  Ferdinand  and  Enguera 
from  their  oaths  in  view  of  the  great  offence  to  God  and  danger 
to  conscience  involved  in  the  observance  of  the  Concordia,  but 
a  word  from  the  monarch  was  sufficient  to  overcome  his  scruples. 
What  Ferdinand  had  felt  it  necessary  to  concede  could  not  be 
withheld  when,  in  the  youth  and  absence  of  Charles,  his  repre- 
sentatives could  scarce  repress  the  turbulent  elements  of  civil 
discord.     Accordingly  Leo  confirmed  all  the  articles  of  both  the 

*  Arcbivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  337. 
'  Ibidem,  fol.  355. 


Chap.  VJ  FURTHER  DEMANDS  275 

Catalan  and  Aragonese  Concordias  by  the  bull  Pastoralis  officii, 
August  1,  1516,  in  which  he  declared  that  the  officials  of  the 
Inquisition  frequently  transgressed  the  bounds  of  reason  and 
propriety  in  their  abuse  of  their  privileges,  immunities  and 
exemptions  and  that  their  overgrown  numbers  reduced  almost  to 
nuUity  the  jurisdiction  of  the  ordinary  ecclesiastical  and  secular 
courts.  This  action,  he  says,  is  taken  at  the  especial  prayer  of 
King  Charles  and  Queen  Juana  and  all  inquisitors  and  officials 
contravening  its  prescriptions,  if  they  do  not,  within  three  days 
after  summons,  revoke  their  unlawful  acts,  are  subject  to  excom- 
munication lata:  seiitentiw,  deprivation  of  office  and  perpetual  dis- 
ability for  re-employment,  ipso  facto.  Moreover  the  Archbishops 
of  Saragossa  and  Tarragona  were  authorized  and  required,  when- 
ever called  upon  by  the  authorities,  to  compel  the  observance  of 
the  bull  by  ecclesiastical  censures  and  other  remedies  without 
appeal,  invoking  if  necessary  the  secular  arm/ 

Thus,  after  four  years  of  struggle,  the  Concordias  of  1512  were 
confirmed  in  the  most  absolute  manner  and  the  relations  between 
the  Inquisition  and  the  people  appeared  to  be  permanently 
settled.  The  inquisitors  however,  as  usual,  refused  to  be  bound 
by  any  limitations.  They  claimed,  and  acted  on  the  claim,  that 
the  papal  bull  of  confirmation  was  surreptitious  and  not  entitled 
to  obedience  and  that  both  the  Concordias  and  the  Instructions 
of  Bishop  Mercader  were  invalid  as  being  restrictions  impeding 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  Office.^  On  the  other  hand  the  people 
grew  more  restive  and  increased  their  demands  for  relief.  The 
occasion  presented  itself  when  Charles  came  to  Spain  to  assume 
possession  of  his  mother's  dominions.  At  Cortes  held  in  Sara- 
gossa, May,  1518,  he  received  the  allegiance  of  Aragon  and  swore 
to  observe  the  fueros  of  the  Cortes  of  Saragossa,  Tarazona  and 
Monzon.  Money  was  soon  wanted  to  supply  the  reckless  liber- 
ality with  which  he  filled  the  pouches  of  his  greedy  Flemings, 
and  towards  the  end  of  the  year  he  summoned  another  assembly 
to  grant  him  a  subsidio.     It  agreed  to  raise  200,000  libras  but 

1  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  1  de  copias,  fol.  219. — Pragmdticas 
y  altres  Drets  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  viii,  cap.  2. 

Ferdinand  must  have  resolved  on  this  policy  about  a  year  earlier,  but  delayed 
putting  it  into  execution.  In  the  Simancas  archives,  Patronato  real,  Inquisicion 
Leg.  unico,  fol.  6,  there  is  a  similar  brief,  but  without  the  executive  clauses, 
addressed  to  him  and  commencing  Exponi  nobis  nuper  fecisti.  It  bears  date 
May  12,  1.515,  and  was  apparently  held  by  him  in  reserve. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  2. 


276  TSE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

coupled  this  with  a  series  of  thirty-one  articles,  much  more 
advanced  than  anything  hitherto  demanded  in  Aragon — in  fact 
copied  with  little  change  from  those  agreed  to  in  Castile  by  Jean 
le  Sauvage  and  abandoned  in  consequence  of  his  death — articles 
which  revolutionized  inquisitorial  procedure  and  assimilated  it 
to  that  of  the  secular  criminal  courts.  Charles,  in  these  matters 
was  now  wholly  under  the  influence  of  his  former  tutor  and 
present  inquisitor-general  Cardinal  Adrian.  He  wanted  the 
money,  however,  and  he  gave  an  equivocal  consent  to  the  articles; 
it  was,  he  said,  his  will  that  in  each  and  all  the  holy  canons  should 
be  observed,  with  the  decrees  of  the  Holy  See  and  without 
attempting  anything  to  the  contrary.  If  doubts  arose  the  pope 
should  be  asked  to  decide  them;  if  any  one  desired  to  accuse 
inquisitors  or  officials,  he  could  do  so  before  the  inquisitor-general, 
who  would  call  in  counsellors  and  administer  justice,  or,  if  the 
crime  appertained  to  the  secular  courts,  he  would  see  that  justice 
was  speedy.  This  declaration,  with  the  interpretation  to  be  put 
on  each  and  every  article  by  the  pope,  he  promised  under  oath  to 
observe  and  enforce  and  he  further  swore  not  to  seek  dispensation 
from  this  oath  or  to  avail  himself  of  it  if  obtained.^  The  people 
were  amply  justified  in  distrusting  their  rulers,  for  Charles  sub- 
sequently instructed  the  Count  of  Cifuentes,  his  ambassador  at 
Rome,  to  procure  the  revocation  of  the  articles  and  a  dispensation 
from  his  oath  to  observe  them.^ 

Charles  had  thus  shuffled  off  from  his  shoulders  to  those  of  the 
pope  the  responsibility  for  this  grave  alteration  in  inquisitorial 
procedure  which,  by  forcing  the  Holy  Office  to  administer  open 
justice,  would  have  diminished  so  greatly  its  powers  of  evil.  The 
question  was  thus  transferred  to  Rome  and  the  Cortes  lost  no 
time  in  seeking  to  obtain  from  Leo  X  the  confirmation  of  the 
articles.  A  letter  requesting  this  was  procured  from  Charles  and 
was  forwarded  to  Rome  with  a  copy  of  the  articles  and  of  Charles's 
oath,  officially  authenticated  by  Juan  Prat,  the  notary  of  the 
Cortes.  The  papers  were  sent  to  Rome  by  a  certain  Diego  de  las 
Casas,  a  Converso  of  Seville  who,  as  his  subsequent  history  shows, 
must  have  been  amply  provided  with  the  funds  necessary  to 
secure  a  favorable  hearing. 

The  situation  was  one  which  called  for  active  measures  on  the 
part  of  the  Inquisition.    The  Cortes  dissolved  January  17,  1519, 

1  Llorente,  Anales,  II,  146-53. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libre  921,  fol.  76. 


Chap.  V]  STRUGGLE  IN  SARAGOSSA  277 

and  a  letter  of  the  22d,  from  the  Suprema  to  the  Inquisitor  of  Cala- 
tayud,  shows  that  already  steps  had  been  taken  to  prosecute  all 
who  had  endeavored  to  influence  them  against  the  Inquisition 
or  who  had  made  complaints  to  Charles  or  Adrian/  A  more 
effective  and  bolder  scheme  was  to  accuse  Juan  Prat  of  having 
falsified  the  series  of  articles  sent  to  Rome.  Charles  had  appointed 
a  commission,  consisting  of  the  Archbishop  of  Saragossa,  Cardinal 
Adrian  and  Chancellor  Gattinara,  to  consider  all  matters  con- 
nected with  the  Inciuisiton;  to  them  Prat  had  submitted  the 
articles  which  they  returned  to  him  with  a  declaration,  which 
must  have  been  an  approval  as  its  character  was  studiously  sup- 
pressed in  the  subsequent  proceedings.  Notwithstanding  this  the 
Saragossa  inquisitors,  Pedro  Arbues  and  Toribio  Saldafia  promptly 
reported  to  Charles,  who  had  left  Saragossa  for  Barcelona,  that 
Prat  had  falsified  the  articles  and  Charles,  from  Igualada,  Fcb- 
rurary  4th,  replied  ordering  them  to  obey  the  instructions  of  Car- 
dinal Adrian  and  collect  evidence  as  to  the  falsifications  which 
they  claimed  to  have  discovered.  They  postponed  action,  how- 
ever, for  some  weeks  until  the  archbishop  had  left  the  city  and 
did  not  arrest  Prat  until  March  16th,  Their  investigation  revealed 
some  trivial  irregularities  but  nothing  to  invalidate  the  accuracy 
of  the  articles  transmitted  to  Rome,  yet  on  the  18th  they  com- 
municated to  the  Suprema  the  results  of  their  labors  as  though 
the  whole  record  was  vitiated  and  Prat  had  been  guilty  of  falsi- 
fication. A  way  thus  was  opened  to  escape  from  the  engagements 
entered  into  with  the  Cortes.  A  series  of  articles  was  drawn  up, 
signed  by  Gattinara,  which  was  sent  to  Rome  as  the  genuine  one 
and  urgent  letters  were  despatched,  April  30th,  to  all  the  Roman 
agents,  the  pope  and  four  of  the  cardinals  in  the  Spanish  interest, 
stating  that  the  official  copy  was  falsified,  the  genuine  one  was 
that  bearing  Gattinara's  name,  the  honor  of  God  was  involved 
and  the  safety  of  the  Catholic  faith  and  no  effort  was  to  be  spared 
to  secure  the  papal  confirmation  of  the  right  articles. 

To  justify  this  it  was  necessary  that  Prat  should  be  convicted 
and  punished.  Apparently  fearing  that  this  could  not  be  accom- 
plished in  Saragossa,  Cardinal  Adrian  ordered  the  inquisitors  to 
send  him  to  Barcelona  for  trial,  in  ignorance  that  this  was  in 
violation  of  one  of  the  dearest  of  the  Aragonese  privileges  for- 
bidding the  deportation  of  any  citizen  against  his  will.  This 
aroused  a  storm  and  the  leading  officials  of  Church  and  State 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  74,  fol.  120. 


278  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

interposed  so  effectually  with  the  inquisitors  that  Prat  was 
allowed  to  remain  in  the  secret  prison  of  the  Aljaferia,  The 
quarrel  was  now  assuming  serious  proportions;  not  only  was  the 
kingdom  aflame  with  this  attempted  violation  of  its  privileges 
but  it  was  universally  believed  that  Charles  had  granted  all  the 
demands  of  the  Cortes  in  return  for  theservicio  and  his  interference 
with  the  papal  confirmation  was  bitterly  resented.  The  Dipu- 
tados  summoned  the  inquisitors  to  obey  the  Concordia  of  1512, 
as  confirmed  by  the  bull  of  August  1,  1516,  while  awaiting  con- 
firmation of  the  new  Concordia  and  at  the  same  time  they  called 
the  barons  and  magnates  of  the  realm  to  a  conference  at  Fuentes, 
whence,  on  May  9th,  they  sent  to  Charles  a  remonstrance  more 
emphatic  than  respectful,  with  an  intimation  that  the  servicio 
would  not  be  collected  until  Prat  should  be  released,  the  pre- 
text being  that  the  papers  relating  to  it  were  in  his  office. 

To  this  Charles  responded  loftily,  May  17th,  that  for  no  personal 
interest  would  he  neglect  his  soul  and  conscience  nor,  to  preserve 
his  kingdom,  would  he  allow  anything  against  the  honor  of  God 
and  to  the  detriment  of  the  Holy  Office.  Under  threat  of  excom- 
munication and  other  severe  penalties  he  ordered  the  Diputados 
not  to  convoke  the  Estates  of  the  realm  or  to  send  envoys  to  him; 
he  would  comply  with  the  Concordia  and  had  already  asked  its 
confirmation  of  the  pope — the  fact  being  that  he  had  on  May  7th 
written  to  Rome — and  this  he  repeated  May  29th — to  impede  the 
confirmation  of  the  official  Concordia  and  to  urge  that  of  his  own 
version.  There  was  a  rumor  that  the  Estates  on  May  14th  had 
resolved  to  take  Prat  from  the  Aljaferia  by  force  and  to  meet  this, 
on  May  17th,  he  sent  the  Comendador  Garcia  de  Loaisa  to  Sara- 
gossa  with  instructions  to  arm  the  Cofradia  of  San  Pedro  Martir — 
an  association  connected  with  the  Inquisition — to  raise  the  people 
and  to  meet  force  with  force.  The  authorities  were  to  be  bullied 
and  told  that  the  king  would  assert  his  sovereign  authority  and 
that  nothing  should  prevent  the  extradition  of  Prat.  In  the 
hands  of  his  ghostly  advisers  he  was  prepared  to  risk  civil  war  in 
defence  of  the  abuses  of  the  Inquisition.  There  was  fear  that  the 
inquisitors  might  be  intimidated  into  releasing  Prat  and  Cardinal 
Adrian  took  the  unprecedented  step  of  writing  directly  to  the 
gaoler  of  the  Aljaferia  instructing  him  to  disobey  any  such  orders. 

In  spite  of  this  assertion  of  absolutism,  Charles's  orders  were 
treated  with  contempt.  The  Cortes  met  at  Azuaga,  refused  to 
obey  his  angry  commands  to  disperse  and  sent  to  him  Don  Sancho 


Chap.  V]  STRUGGLE  IN  SABAGOSSA  279 

de  la  Caballeria  with  the  unpleasant  message  that  the  servicio 
would  be  withheld  until  he  should  grant  justice  to  the  kingdom. 
His  finances,  in  the  hands  of  his  Flemish  favorites,  were  in  com- 
plete disorder.  The  Emperor  Maximilian  had  died  January  22d 
and  the  contest  for  the  succession,  against  the  gold  of  Francis  I, 
was  expensive.  Moreover,  in  expectation  of  the  servicio,  Chievres 
had  obtained  advances  at  usurious  interest  so  that  the  expected 
funds  were  already  nearly  exhausted  and,  as  soon  as  the  electoral 
struggle  ended  in  Charles's  nomination,  June  28th,  there  came 
fresh  demands  for  funds  to  prepare  for  his  voyage  to  assume  his 
new  dignity.  Chievres  therefore  eagerly  sought  for  some  com- 
promise to  relieve  the  dead-lock,  but  the  Aragonese  on  the  one 
hand  and  Cardinal  Adrian  on  the  other  were  intractable.  The 
high-handed  arrest  of  Prat  had  fatally  complicated  the  situation. 

Charles  yielded  in  so  far  as  to  order  that  Prat  should  not  be 
removed  from  the  kingdom  and  several  tentative  propositions 
were  made  as  to  the  trial  of  Prat  which  only  show  how  little  he 
and  his  advisers  realized  the  true  condition  of  affairs.  With 
wonted  Aragonese  tenacity  the  Diputados  adhered  to  the  posi- 
tion that  the  accuracy  of  the  record  should  not  be  called  in 
question  and  that  the  only  point  to  be  determined  was  whether 
the  Inquisition  rightfully  had  any  jurisdiction  in  the  matter.  At 
the  same  time,  to  show  that  they  were  not  seeking  to  elude  pay- 
ment of  the  servicio  they  agreed  on  September  7th  to  levy  it, 
at  the  same  time  begging  Charles  to  release  Prat. 

They  were  probably  led  to  make  this  concession  by  a  victory 
which  they  had  gained  in  Rome.  Both  sides  had  been  vigorously 
at  work  there,  but  the  Aragonese  had  the  advantage  that  Leo  X 
at  the  moment  was  incensed  against  the  Spanish  Inquisition 
because  of  the  insolent  insubordination  of  the  Toledo  tribunal  in 
the  case  of  Bernardino  Diaz,  of  which  more  hereafter.  His 
own  experience  showed  him  of  what  it  was  capable  and  the 
request  of  the  Cortes  for  the  confirmation  of  the  Concordia  was  to 
a  great  extent  granted  by  three  briefs,  received  August  1st, 
addressed  respectively  to  the  king,  to  Cardinal  Adrian  and  to  the 
Inquisitors  of  Saragossa,  reducing  the  Inquisition  to  the  rules  of 
the  common  law.  Charles  did  not  allow  the  briefs  to  be  pub- 
Ushed  and,  when  the  Diputados  presented  to  the  inquisitors  the 
one  addressed  to  them,  they  refused  to  obey  it  without  instruc- 
tions from  Adrian,  whereupon,  on  August  8th,  the  Diputados 
appUed  to  Rome  for  some  further  remedy. 


280  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON  [Book  I 

Although  the  briefs  were  thus  dormant  they  became  the  cen- 
tral point  of  the  contest.  On  September  24th,  Charles  despatched 
to  Rome  Lope  Hurtado  de  Mendoza  as  a  special  envoy  with  long 
and  detailed  instructions.  He  had  been  advised,  he  said  that  the 
pope  intended  to  issue  a  bull  revoking  all  inquisitorial  commis- 
sions, save  that  of  Cardinal  Adrian;  that  in  future  the  bishops 
with  their  chapters  in  each  see  were  to  nominate  two  persons  of 
whom  the  inquisitor-general  was  to  select  the  fittest  and  present 
him  to  the  pope  for  confirmation;  the  acts  of  these  inquisitors  were 
to  be  judicially  investigated  every  two  years,  and  their  procedure 
was  to  conform  to  the  common  law  and  to  the  canons.  The 
elaborate  arguments  which  Charles  urged  against  each  feature 
of  this  revolutionary  plan  show  that  it  was  not  a  figment  but 
was  seriously  proposed  with  likelihood  of  its  adoption.  Moreover 
he  said  that  influences  were  at  work  to  secure  the  removal  of  the 
sanhenitos  of  convicts  from  the  churches,  against  which  he  earn- 
estly protested;  Ferdinand  had  refused  three  hundred  thousand 
ducats  offered  to  him  to  procure  this  concession.  In  conclusion 
Charles  declared  that  no  importunity  should  shake  his  deter- 
mination to  make  no  change  in  the  Inquisition  and  he  signifi- 
cantly expressed  his  desire  to  preserve  the  friendship  of  his  Holi- 
ness. 

What  secret  influences  were  at  work  to  effect  a  complete 
reversal  of  papal  policy  it  would  be  vain  to  guess,  but  Mendoza 
had  scarce  time  to  reach  Rome  when  he  procured  a  brief  of 
October  12th,  addressed  to  Cardinal  Adrian.  In  this  Sadoleto's 
choicest  Latinity  was  employed  to  cover  up  the  humiliation  of 
conscious  wrong-doing,  in  its  effort  to  shift  the  responsibility  to 
the  shoulders  of  others.  Charles's  letters  and  Mendoza's  message 
had  enlightened  him  as  to  the  intentions  of  the  king  with  regard 
to  the  preservation  of  the  faith  and  the  reform  of  the  Inquisition. 
He  promised  that  he  would  change  nothing  and  would  publish 
nothing  without  the  assent  of  the  king  and  the  information  of  the 
inquisitor-general,  but  he  dwelt  on  the  complaints  that  reached 
him  from  all  quarters  of  the  avarice  and  iniquity  of  the  inquisitors; 
he  warned  Adrian  that  the  infamy  of  the  wickedness  of  his  sub- 
delegates  redounded  to  the  dishonor  of  the  nation  and  affected 
both  him  and  the  king;  he  was  responsible  and  must  seek  to  pre- 
serve his  own  honor  and  that  of  the  king  by  seeing  that  they  desist 
from  the  insolence  with  which  they  disregarded  the  papal  man- 
dates and  rebelled  against  the  Holy  See. 


Chap.  V]  STRUGGLE  IN  SARAGOSSA  281 

While  thus  the  three  briefs  were  not  revoked  they  were  practi- 
cally annulled.  The  indignation  of  the  Aragonese  at  finding 
themselves  thus  juggled  was  warm  and  found  expression,  Jan- 
uary 30,  1520,  in  discontinuing  the  collection  of  the  servicio. 
Charles  was  now  at  Coruiia,  preparing  for  his  voyage  to  Flanders 
and  thither,  on  February  3d,  the  Diputados  sent  Azor  Zapata 
and  Inigo  de  Mendoza  to  procure  the  Hberation  of  Prat  and  to 
urge  Charles  to  obtain  the  confirmation  of  the  Concordia.  To 
hberate  Prat  without  a  trial  was  tacitly  to  admit  the  correctness 
of  his  record,  yet,  on  April  21st,  Cardinal  Adrian  issued  an  order 
for  the  fiscal  to  discontinue  the  prosecution  and  for  the  inquisitors 
to  "  relax"  Prat.  This  order  was  presented  May  1st  to  the  inquis- 
itors, but  the  word  "relaxation"  was  that  used  in  the  delivery 
of  convicts  to  the  secular  arm  for  burning;  Prat  stoutly  refused 
to  accept  it  and  remained  in  prison. 

Charles  embarked  May  21st  and  the  rest  of  the  year  1520  was 
spent  in  endeavors  by  each  side  to  obtain  the  confirmation  of 
their  respective  formulas  of  the  Concordia  and  in  fruitless  attempts 
by  Charles  to  have  the  three  briefs  revoked.  Though  unpub- 
lished and  virtually  annulled  they  were  the  source  of  great 
anxiety  to  the  Inquisition.  The  correspondence  between  Charles 
and  his  Roman  agents  shows  perpetual  insistance  on  his  part  and 
perpetual  promises  and  evasions  by  the  pope,  sometimes  on  the 
flimsiest  pretexts  for  postponement,  the  secret  of  which  is  prob- 
ably to  be  found  in  a  report  by  Juan  Manuel,  the  Spanish  ambas- 
sador, on  October  12th,  that  the  pope  was  promised  46,000  or 
47,000  ducats  if  he  could  induce  the  king  to  let  the  briefs  stand. 
Thus  it  went  on  throughout  the  year  and,  when  Leo  died,  Decem- 
ber 1,  1521,  the  briefs  were  still  unrevoked. 

A  year  earlier,  however,  December  1,  1520,  he  had  confirmed 
the  Concordia,  in  a  bull  so  carefully  drawn  as  not  to  commit  the 
Holy  See  to  either  of  the  contesting  versions.  It  was  limited  to  the 
promises  embraced  in  Charles's  oath  and,  as  regards  the  articles,  it 
merely  said  that  the  canons  and  ordinances  and  papal  decrees 
should  be  inviolably  observed,  under  pain  of  i'pso  facto  excom- 
munication, dismissal  from  office  and  disability  for  re-appoint- 
ment. Either  side  was  consequently  at  liberty  to  put  what  con- 
struction it  pleased  on  the  papal  utterance. 

Charles  meanwhile  had  been  growing  more  and  more  impatient 
for  the  servicio  so  long  withheld;  he  had  written  to  Adrian  and  also 
to  the  inquisitors,  ordering  that  the  Concordia  of  Monzon  (1512) 


282  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  A  BAG  ON  [Book  I 

and  that  of  Saragossa,  according  to  his  version,  should  be  strictly 
obeyed,  so  that  the  abuses  thus  sought  to  be  corrected  should 
cease  and  the  people  should  pay  the  impost.  The  inquisitors 
dallied  and  seem  to  have  asked  him  what  articles  he  referred  to, 
for  he  replied,  September  17th,  explaining  that  they  were  those 
of  Monzon  and  Saragossa,  the  latter  as  expressed  in  the  paper 
signed  by  Adrian  and  Gattinara.  When,  therefore,  he  received 
the  papal  confirmation  of  December  1st  he  lost  no  time  in  writing, 
December  18th,  to  Adrian  and  the  inquisitors  announcing  it  and 
ordering  the  articles  to  be  rigidly  observed  without  gloss  or  inter- 
pretation, so  that  the  abuses  and  disorders  prohibited  in  them 
may  cease,  but  he  was  careful  to  describe  the  articles  as  those 
agreed  upon  at  Monzon  and  lately  confirmed  at  Saragossa  in  the 
form  adopted  by  Adrian  and  Gattinara. 

The  Aragonese,  on  the  other  hand,  adhered  to  their  version. 
The  bull  of  confirmation  seems  to  have  reached  Saragossa  through 
Flanders,  accompanied  by  a  letter  from  Charles  and  it  was  not 
until  January  15,  1521,  that  the  Diputados  wrote  to  Adrian  enclos- 
ing the  royal  letter  and  a  copy  of  the  bull.  In  obeying  it,  he  con- 
ceded the  Aragonese  version  of  the  Concordia,  though  with  a  bad 
grace.  From  Tordesillas,  January  28th,  he  wrote  to  the  Dipu- 
tados and  the  inquisitors  that  the  bull  must  be  obeyed  although 
it  might  properly  be  considered  surreptitious,  as  it  asserted  that 
Charles  had  sworn  to  the  fictitious  articles  inserted  by  Juan  Prat, 
for  which  the  latter  deserved  the  severest  punishment.  In  spite 
of  this  burst  of  petulance,  however,  he  practically  admitted  Prat's 
innocence  by  ordering  his  liberation  and,  on  February  13,  1521, 
the  order  was  carried  in  triumph  by  the  governor,  the  Diputados 
and  a  concourse  of  nobles  and  citizens  to  the  Aljaferia  and  sol- 
emnly presented  to  the  inquisitors,  who  asked  for  copies  and, 
with  these  in  their  hands,  said  that  they  w^ould  do  their  duty 
without  swerving  from  justice  and  reason.  So  well  satisfied  were 
the  Aragonese  that  to  show  their  gratitude  they  had  already,  on 
January  18th,  ordered  the  cities  and  towns  to  pay  all  current 
imposts  as  well  as  the  suspended  subsidio  within  thirty-five  days. 
It  may  be  added  that  finally  Cardinal  Adrian  recognized  the 
innocence  of  Prat  in  the  most  formal  manner,  in  a  letter  of  April 
20th  to  the  inquisitors,  imposing  silence  on  the  fiscal  and  ordering 
the  discharge  of  Prat  and  his  securities.^ 

*  Argensola,  Anales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  i,  cap.  liv,  Ixxii  (Zaragoza,  1630). — 
Llorente,  Anales,  II,  145-247. — Sayas,  Anales  de  Aragon,  cap.  ii  (Zaragoza,  1666), 


Chap.  V]  STRUGGLE  IN  BARCELONA 


283 


Triumph  and  gratitude  were  alike  misplaced.  Cardinal  Adrian 
had  followed  his  letter  of  January  28th  with  another  of  the  30th 
to  the  inquisitors,  instructing  them  that  the  papal  confirmation 
must  be  construed  in  accordance  with  the  sacred  canons  and  the 
decrees  of  the  Holy  See,  so  that  they  could  continue  to  admin- 
ister justice  duly  and  he  encouraged  them  with  an  ayuda  de  costa 
or  gratuity.'  They  went  on  imperturbably  with  their  work ;  not 
only  was  the  Concordia  of  Saragossa  never  observed  but  that  of 
Monzon  was  treated  as  non-existent  and  we  shall  see  hereafter 
that,  towards  the  close  of  the  century,  the  Inquisition  coolly  as- 
serted that  the  latter  had  been  invaUdated  when  Leo  X  released 
Ferdinand  from  his  oath  to  observe  it  and  that  the  former  had 
never  been  confirmed  and  that  there  was  no  trace  of  either  hav- 
ing ever  been  observed.  The  Inquisition,  in  fact,  was  invulner- 
able and  impenetrable.  It  made  its  own  laws  and  there  was  no 
power  in  the  land,  save  that  of  the  crown,  that  could  force  it  to 
keep  its  engagements. 

Meanwhile  the  obstinacy  of  the  Catalans,  which  detained  the 
impatient  Charles  in  Barcelona  throughout  the  year  1519,  secured, 
nominally  at  least,  the  formal  confirmation  by  both  Charles  and 
Adrian,  of  the  Monzon  Concordia  of  1512  with  additions.  One  of 
these  provided  that  any  one  who  entered  the  service  of  the  Holy 
Oflfice  while  hable  to  a  civil  or  criminal  action,  should  still  be  held 
to  answer  before  his  former  judge,  and  that  criminal  offences, 
unconnected  with  the  faith,  committed  by  oflficials  should  be 
exclusively  justiciable  in  the  civil  courts.  This  struck  at  the  root 
of  one  of  the  most  serious  abuses — the  immunity  with  which  the 
Inquisition  shielded  its  criminals — and  scarcely  less  important 
to  all  who  had  deahngs  with  New  Christians  was  another  article 
providing  that  property  acquired  in  good  faith,  from  one  reputed 
to  be  a  Christian,  should  be  exempt  from  confiscation  in  case  the 


— Dormer,  Anales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  i,  cap.  xxvi  (Zaragoza,  1697). — Archive  hist, 
nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Hacienda,  Leg.  10  (see  also  Padre  Fidel  Fita  in 
Boletin,  XXXIII,  330).— Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I  de  copias,  fol. 
125. — Bergenroth,  Calendar  of  Spanish  State  Papers,  Suppl.  p.  300. — P.  Mart. 
Angler.  Epistt.  631,  632,  634.— Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  8, 
104. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  6,  fol.  73,  76,  77,  78;  Libro  9,  fol. 
25,  26;  Libro  14,  fol.  57,  61;  Libro  72,  P.  ii,  fol.  207;  Libro  73,  fol.  32,  142,  143; 
Libro  74,  fol.  170;  Libro  921,  fol.  72-6,  82,  84,  88,  90. 
^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  73,  fol.  144. 


284  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON  [Book  I 

seller  should  subsequently  be  convicted,  even  though  the  thirty 
years'  prescription  should  still  exist/ 

The  agreement  was  reached  January  11,  1520,  but  experience 
of  the  faithlessness  of  the  Inquisition  had  made  the  Catalans 
wary.  They  were  about  to  grant  a  servicio  to  Charles  and  they 
sought  a  guarantee  by  addressing  to  him  a  supplication  that  he 
should  make  Cardinal  Adrian  swear  to  the  observance  of  the 
Concordia  of  1512  and  the  new  articles  and  that  he  should  pro- 
cure within  four  months  from  the  pope  a  bull  of  confirmation,  in 
which  the  Bishops  of  Lerida  and  Barcelona  should  be  appointed 
conservators,  with  full  power  to  enforce  the  agreement.  They 
offered  to  pay  two  hundred  ducats  towards  the  cost  of  the  bull 
and  they  demanded  that  they  should  retain  twenty  thousand 
libras  of  the  servicio  until  the  bull  should  be  delivered  to  the 
Diputados.  The  same  condition  was  attached  to  a  liberal  dona- 
tion of  twelve  thousand  libras  which  they  made  to  the  Inquisition 
— probably  a  part  of  the  bargain.  Meanwhile  Charles  was  to 
give  orders  that  the  inquisitors  should  be  bound  by  the  articles 
and,  in  case  of  infraction,  satisfaction  for  such  violations  should  be 
deducted  from  the  twenty  thousand  libras.  In  due  time,  August 
25th,  Leo  X  executed  a  formal  bull  of  confirmation  of  the  articles 
of  1512  and  1520  and  appointed  the  Bishops  of  Lerida  and  Bar- 
celona as  conservators.^ 

What  was  the  value  of  the  Concordia  thus  solemnly  agreed  to 
and  liberally  paid  for,  with  its  papal  confirmation  and  conserva- 
tors, was  speedily  seen  when,  in  1523,  the  authorities  of  Perpignan 
became  involved  in  a  quarrel  with  Inquisitor  Juan  Naverdu  over 
the  case  of  the  wife  of  Juan  Noguer.  They  complained  of  an 
infraction  of  the  Concordia  and  applied  to  the  Bishop  of  Lerida 
for  its  enforcement.  He  appointed  Miguel  Roig,  a  canon  of  Elna, 
as  the  executor  of  his  decision,  who  issued  letters  ordering  the 
inquisitor  and  his  secretary  to  observe  the  Concordia,  under  pain 
of  excommunication,  and  to  drop  the  cases  which  they  were  prose- 
cuting. Appeal  was  also  made  to  Rome  and  letters  were  obtained 
from  Clement  VII.    Charles,  however,  intervened  and  obtained 


^  Constitucions  fetes  per  la  S.  C.  C.  y  R.  Magestat  de  Don  Carlos  elet  en  Rey 
dels  Romans  .  .  .  en  la  primera  Cort  de  Barcelona  en  lany  MDxx.  Capitols 
y  modificacions  y  donacio  dels  bens  de  Converses  (Barcelona,  1520).  Also  in 
Pragmaticas  y  altres  Drets  de  Cathalunya,  Tit.  viii,  I  3. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisieion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  41,  66; 
Libro  4,  fol.  123. 


Chap.  V]  ABUSES  CONTINUE  285 

another  brief,  January  6,  1524,  annulling  the  previous  one  and 
transferring  the  matter  to  Inquisitor-general  Manrique.  The 
result  was  that  nearly  all  the  magistrates  of  Perpignan — the 
consuls  and  jurados  with  their  lawyers  and  Miguel  Roig— were 
obliged  to  swear  obedience  in  all  things  to  the  Inquisition,  were 
exposed  to  the  irredeemable  disgrace  of  appearing  as  penitents 
at  the  mass  and  were  subjected  to  fines  from  which  the  Holy  Office 
gathered  in  the  comfortable  sum  of  1115  ducats/  The  motto  of 
the  Inquisition  was  noli  me  tangere  and  it  administered  a  sharp 
lesson  to  all  who  might  venture,  even  under  papal  authority,  to 
make  it  conform  to  its  agreements. 

It  was  in  vain  that  the  sturdy  subjects  of  the  crown  of  Aragon 
struggled  and  gained  concessions,  paid  for  them  and  fenced 
them  around  with  all  the  precautions  held  sacred  by  pubhc  law. 
The  inquisitors  felt  themselves  to  be  above  the  law  and  all  the 
old  abuses  continued  to  flourish  as  rankly  as  ever.  About  this 
time  the  Cortes  of  the  three  kingdoms,  by  command  of  Charles, 
addressed  to  Inquisitor-general  Manrique  a  series  of  sixteen 
grievances,  repeating  the  old  complaints — the  extension  of 
jurisdiction  over  usury,  blasphemy,  bigamy  and  sodomy;  the 
acceptance  by  the  inquisitors  of  commissions  to  act  as  conser- 
vators in  secular  and  ecclesiastical  cases  and  profane  matters; 
their  arresting  people  for  private  quarrels  and  on  trivial  charges 
and  insufficient  evidence,  leaving  on  them  and  their  descendants 
an  ineffaceable  stain,  even  though  they  were  discharged  with- 
out penance;  their  multiplication  of  familiars  and  concealing 
their  names,  appointing  criminals  and  protecting  them  in  their 
crimes  and  finally  their  overbearing  and  insulting  attitude  in 
general.  In  answer  to  this  the  inquisitor-general  contented 
himself  with  asserting  that  the  laws  were  obeyed  and  asking  for 
specific  instances  of  infraction  and  the  names  of  the  parties — 
secure  that  no  one  would  dare  to  come  forward  and  expose 
himself  to  the  vengeance  of  the  tribunal.^  Again,  in  1528  at  the 
Cortes  of  Monzon,  we  find  a  repetition  of  grievances — the  abuse 
of  confiscations,  the  cognizance  of  usury  and  other  matters  dis- 
connected with  heresy  and  general  inobservance  of  the  articles 
agreed  upon.    To  the  petition  that  he  remedy  these  and  procure 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Libro  930,  fol.  39. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  unico,  fol.  38,  39. 
This  paper  is  not  dated  but  its  character  and  the  documents  with  which  it  is 
associated  indicate  that  it  belongs  to  this  period. 


286  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ARAGON  [Book  I 

from  the  inquisitor-general  an  order  to  his  subordinates  to  con- 
form themselves  to  the  Concordias,  Charles  returned  the  equivo- 
cating answer  "His  majesty  will  see  that  the  inquisitor-general 
orders  the  observance  of  that  which  should  be  observed,  remov- 
ing abuses  if  there  are  any/ 

The  imperial  attitude  was  not  such  as  to  discourage  the 
audacity  of  the  inquisitors  and,  at  the  Cortes  of  Monzon  in 
September,  1533,  the  deputies  of  Aragon  presented  to  Inquisitor- 
general  Manrique,  who  was  present,  two  series  of  grievances. 
One  of  these  he  promptly  answered  by  characterizing  some  of 
the  demands  as  impertinent,  scandalous,  and  illegal,  and  others 
as  not  worthy  of  reply.  The  other  series  was  referred  to  Charles 
and  was  not  answered  until  December.  It  commenced  by  asking 
that  the  Concordia  confirmed  by  Leo  X,  in  1516,  should  be 
observed,  to  which  the  reply  was  that  such  action  should  be 
taken  as  would  comport  with  the  service  of  God  and  proper 
exercise  of  the  Inquisition.  The  request  that  the  inquisitors 
confine  themselves  to  matters  of  faith  was  met  with  the  assertion 
that  they  did  so,  except  when  under  orders  from  their  supe- 
riors. To  the  demand  that  the  dowries  of  Catholic  wives  should 
not  be  confiscated,  the  dry  response  was  that  the  laws  should 
be  observed.  In  this  cavalier  spirit  the  rest  of  the  petition  was 
disposed  of,  and  the  whole  shows  how  completely  the  Holy 
Office  was  emancipated  from  any  subjection  to  the  laws  which 
had  cost  such  struggles  to  obtain  and  which  had  been  paid  for 
so  largely.^ 

While  Manrique  and  the  Suprema  were  at  Monzon,  they  were 
called  upon  to  take  action  with  regard  to  troubles  at  Barcelona 
between  the  inquisitor,  Fernando  de  Loazes  and  the  magistrates 
and  Diputados.  These  had  been  on  foot  for  some  time.  A 
letter  of  Charles  from  Bologna,  February  25,  1533,  to  Loazes 
assures  him  of  his  sympathy  and  support  and,  in  September, 
the  Suprema  at  Monzon  resolved  to  send  a  judge  thither  to 
prosecute  and  punish  the  offenders  for  their  enormous  delin- 
quencies.' What  were  the  merits  of  the  quarrel  do  not  appear, 
but  it  was  doubtless  provoked  by  the  overbearing  arrogance  of 
Loazes  for,  at  the  Cortes  of  Monzon,  the  Catalans  represented 
to  Charles  that  the  pretensions  of  the  inquisitor  impeded  the 

^  Dormer,  Anales,  Lib.  i,  cap.  xli. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  47,  48. 

»  Ibidem,  fol.  61,  64. 


Chap.  V]  ABlfSES  CONTINUE  287 

course  of  justice  in  matters  involving  the  regalias  or  preroga- 
tives of  the  crown,  and  asked  to  have  him  prosecuted  by  the 
Bishop  of  Barcelona.  Charles  thereupon  addressed  to  Loazes  a 
letter,  January  16,  1534,  forbidding  him  in  future  to  interfere 
with  the  royal  judges,  as  no  one  could  claim  exemption  from  the 
royal  jurisdiction.  At  the  same  time  he  instructed  his  lieu- 
tenant for  Aragon,  Fadrique  de  Portugal,  Archbishop  of  Sara- 
gossa,  to  enforce  this  mandate.  It  was  not  long  before  Loazes 
had  the  opportunity  of  manifesting  his  contempt  for  these 
expressions  of  the  royal  will.  One  of  the  consuls  holding  the 
admiralty  court  of  Barcelona  was  hearing  a  case  between  two 
merchants,  Joan  Ribas  and  Gerald  Camps:  a  quarrel  ensued 
between  them;  Ribas  with  his  servant  Joan  Monseny  struck 
Camps  in  the  face  and  then  drawing  his  sword,  threatened  the 
consul's  life.  This  was  a  scandalous  offence  to  the  dignity  of 
the  crown  under  whose  protection  the  court  was  held.  By 
order  of  the  Archbishop  and  royal  council  the  culprits  were 
arrested  and  thrown  in  prison,  but  Ribas  was  a  familiar  of  the 
Inquisition  and  Loazes  presented  himself  before  the  arch- 
bishop in  full  court  and  claimed  him.  The  letters  of  Charles  V 
were  read  and  his  claim  was  rejected,  whereupon,  on  June  13th, 
he  issued  a  mandate  demanding  the  surrender  to  him  of  Ribas  and 
forbidding  all  proceedings  against  him  under  pain  of  excom- 
munication.^ What  was  the  termination  of  this  special  case 
we  have  no  means  of  knowing,  but  Loazes  did  not  suffer  by 
reason  of  his  audacity.  In  1542  he  was  made  Bishop  of  Elna, 
whence  he  passed  by  successive  translations  through  the  sees 
of  Lerida,  Tortosa  and  Tarragona,  dying  at  last,  full  of  years 
and  honors  in  1568  as  Archbishop  of  Valencia. 

It  is  not  worth  while  at  present  to  pursue  these  disputes 
which  reveal  the  character  of  the  Inquisition  and  the  resistance 
offered  to  it  by  the  comparatively  free  populations  subject  to 
the  crown  of  Aragon.  We  shall  have  ample  opportunity  here- 
after to  note  the  persistant  arrogance  of  the  inquisitors  under 
the  royal  favor,  the  restlessness  of  the  people  and  the  fruit- 
lessness  of  their  struggle  for  relief  from  oppression.  The  Holy 
Office  had   become   part   of   the  settled   poHcy   of   the   House 

»  Arch.  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Fondos  del  antiguo  Consejo  de  Aragon,  Leg.  708. — 
Costitucions  fetes  ...  en  la  tercera  Cort  de  Cathalunya  en  lany  1534 
(Barcelona,  1534). 


288  THE  KINGDOMS  OF  ABAGON  [Book  I 

of  Austria.  The  Lutheran  revolt  had  grown  to  enormous  pro- 
portions and  no  measures  seemed  too  severe  that  would  protect 
the  faith  from  an  enemy  even  more  insidious  and  more  danger- 
ous than  Judaism.  The  system  grew  to  be  an  integral  part  of 
the  national  institutions  to  be  uprooted  only  by  the  cataclysm 
of  the  French  Revolution  and  the  Napoleonic  war.  At  what  cost 
to  the  people  this  was  effected  is  seen  in  the  boast,  in  1638,  of 
a  learned  official  of  the  Inquisition  that  in  its  favor  the  monarchs 
had  succeeded  in  breaking  down  the  municipal  laws  and  privi- 
leges of  their  kingdoms,  which  otherwise  would  have  presented 
insuperable  obstacles  to  the  extermination  of  heresy,  and  he 
proceeds  to  enumerate  the  various  restrictions  on  the  arbitrary 
power  of  the  secular  courts  which  the  experience  of  ages  had 
framed  for  the  protection  of  the  citizen  from  oppression,  all  of 
which  had  been  swept  away  where  the  Inquisition  was  concerned, 
leaving  the  subject  to  the  discretion  of  the  inquisitor.^ 

>  Parecer  del  Doctor  Martin  Real  (MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130). 


BOOK  11. 

RELATIONS  WITH  THE  STATE. 


CHAPTER   I. 

RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN. 

What  gave  to  the  Spanish  Inquisition  its  peculiar  and  terrible 
efficiency  were  the  completeness  of  its  organization  and  its 
combination  of  the  mysterious  authority  of  the  Church  with 
the  secular  power  of  the  crown.  The  old  Inquisition  was  purely 
an  ecclesiastical  institution,  empowered,  it  is  true,  to  call  upon 
the  State  for  aid  and  for  the  execution  of  its  sentences,  but 
throughout  Christendom  the  relations  between  Church  and  State 
were  too  often  antagonistic  for  its  commands  always  to  receive 
obedience.  In  Spain,  however,  the  Inquisition  represented  not 
only  the  pope  but  the  king;  it  practically  wielded  the  two 
swords — the  spiritual  and  the  temporal — and  the  combination 
produced  a  tyranny,  similar  in  character,  but  far  more  minute 
and  all-pervading,  to  that  which  England  suffered  during  the 
closing  years  of  Henry  VIII  as  Supreme  Head  of  the  Church. 

While  thus  its  domination  over  the  people  was  secure  and 
unvarying,  its  relations  with  the  royal  power  varied  with  the 
temperament  of  the  sovereign.  At  times  it  was  the  instrument 
of  his  will;  at  others  it  seemed  as  though  it  might  almost  sup- 
plant the  monarchy;  it  was  constantly  seeking  to  extend  its 
awful  authority  over  the  other  departments  of  State,  which 
struggled  with  varying  success  to  resist  its  encroachments,  while 
successive  kings,  autocratic  in  theory,  sometimes  posed  as 
arbitrators,  sometimes  vainly  endeavored  to  enforce  their  pacifi- 
catory commands,  but  more  generally  yielded  to  its  domi- 
neering spirit. 

When  Ferdinand  consented  to  the  introduction  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, it  was  no  part  of  his  policy  to  permit  the  foundation  of  an 

19  ( 289 ) 


290  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

institution  which  should  be  independent  of  the  royal  authority. 
He  who  sought  to  forbid  in  Spain  the  residence  of  papal  nuncios 
and  legates  was  not  likely  to  welcome  the  advent  of  a  new 
swarm  of  papal  delegates,  whose  power  over  life  and  property 
would  carry  unchecked  to  every  corner  of  the  land  the  influence 
of  Rome.  Accordingly,  as  we  have  seen,  he  conditioned  the 
admission  of  the  Inquisition  on  the  concession  of  the  power  of 
appointment  and  dismissal  and  he  flatl)^  told  Sixtus  IV  that  he 
would  permit  none  but  appointees  of  his  own  to  exercise  the 
office  of  inquisitor.  As  the  institution  developed  and  became 
more  complex  he  nominated  to  the  pope  the  individual  to 
whom  the  papal  delegation  as  inquisitor-general  should  be 
given  and  he  appointed  the  members  of  the  Suprema,  which 
became  known  as  the  Consejo  de  su  Magestad  de  la  Santa  General 
Inqmsicion.  Although  the  papal  commission  granted  to  the 
inquisitor-general  faculties  of  subdelegating  his  powers  and 
appointing  and  dismissing  his  subordinates,  thus  rendering  his 
action  indispensable,  Ferdinand  was  careful  to  assert  his  right 
to  control  all  appointments  and  to  assume  that  at  least  they 
were  made  with  his  assent  and  concurrence.  In  1485  the  sover- 
eigns had  no  scruple  in  appointing  at  Guadalupe  the  inquisitors 
who  made  such  havoc  among  the  apostates.^  August  8,  1500, 
he  writes  to  the  Bishop  of  Bonavalle  that  he  had  determined  to 
commit  to  him  the  office  of  inquisitor  in  Sardinia,  for  which  the 
commission  and  subdelegation  will  be  despatched  to  him  by  the 
inquisitors-general;  he  can  appoint  an  assessor  and  notary, 
but  the  other  officials  will  be  sent  from  Spain.  A  letter  of  the 
same  date  to  the  Lieutenant-general  of  Sardinia  announces  the 
appointment  by  the  inquisitors-general  "con  nuestra  voluntad 
y  consentimiento,"  which  was  the  ordinary  formula  employed, 
even  in  such  petty  cases  as  when  he  advised  Pedro  Badia,  re- 
ceiver of  confiscations  at  Barcelona,  March  13,  1501,  that  they 
had  appointed  Gregorio  Zamarado  as  portero  or  apparitor  of 
that  tribunal,  in  place  of  Guillen  Donadou  and  that  he  is  to 
receive  the  same  wages.^  Although  the  participation  of  the 
inquisitor-general  wa^_indispensable,  Ferdinand  customarily 
assumed  his  acquiescence  as  a  matter  of  course;  he  would  make 
the  appointment  and  then  ask  affectionately  for  the  subdelega- 
tion of  power.^     As  regards  subordinate  positions,  Torquemada 

'  Pdramo,  p.  138.  ^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  1. 

5  Ibidem,  Libro  3,  fol.  21,  27,  28,  353. 


Chap.  I]  FERDINAND'S  CONTROL  291 

recognized  the  royal  participation  when,  in  1485,  he  instructed 
inquisitors  that  they  could  fill  vacancies  temporarily  "until  the 
king  and  I  provide  for  them."  As  a  rule,  it  may  be  said  that 
Ferdinand  rarely  troubled  himself  about  subordinates,  but  had 
no  hesitation  in  assuming  full  power  when  he  saw  fit,  as  in 
writing  to  an  inquisitor,  March  21,  1499,  "we  order  you  to 
appoint,  as  by  these  presents  we  appoint,  Juan  de  Montiende  as 
fiscal  in  your  tribunal/ 

If  he  thus  cpntrolied^ajDpointrnents  he  was  equally  concerned 
in  dismissals.  We  find  him  writing,  April  22,  1498,  to  an  inquis- 
itor of  Saragossa,  who  had  discharged  an  official  at  Calatayud, 
to  reinstate  him,  as  he  had  done  good  service  with  danger  to 
his  person,  and  on  September  19,  1509,  ordering  Diego  Lopez 
de  Cortegano,  Inquisitor  of  Cordova,  to  cease  his  functions  at 
once  and  return  to  his  benefice — though  this  latter  order  was 
countersigned  by  the  members  of  the  Suprema.^  It  would  be 
superfluous  to  adduce  additional  examples  of  the  control  thus 
exercised  over  the  personnel  of  the  Inquisition — a  control  which 
remained  inherent  in  the  crown  although,  as  we  shall  see,  often 
allowed  to  become  dormant. 

In  all  save  spiritual  matterSj  Ferdinand  considered  the  Inqui- 
sition to  be  merely  an  instrument  to  carry  out  his  will,  though 
it  nuist  be  added  that  this  arose  from  his  anxiety  that  it  should 
be  perfected  in  every  way  for  the  work  in  hand,  and  there  is 
absolutely  no  evidence,  in  his  enormous  and  confidential  cor- 
respondence, that  he  ever  used  it  for  pohtical  purposes,  even 
in  the  stormiest  times  when  struggling  with  unruly  nobles. 
Every  detail  in  its  organization  and  working  was  subject  to 
his  supervision  and,  amid  all  the  cares  of  his  tortuous  policy, 
extending  throughout  Western  Europe,  and  the  excitement  of 
his  frequent  wars,  he  devoted  the  minutest  care  to  its  affairs. 
When,  in  December  1484,  Torquemada  issued  his  supplementary 
instructions,  he  was  careful  to  state  that  he  did  so  by  command 
of  the  sovereigns,  who  ordered  them  to  be  observed.  So  in 
subsequent  instructions,  issued  in  1485,  Torquemada  orders 
the  inquisitors  to  write  to  him  and  to  Ferdinand  about  every- 
thing that  should  be  reported;  the  king  provides  their  salaries 
and  promises  them  rewards;  if  there  is  anything  that  the  king 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  1;  Libro  933. 
»  Ibidem,  Libro  1;  Libro  3,  fol.  109. 


292  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

ought  to  remedy  he  is  to  be  written  to/  That,  in  fact,  the  king 
was  recognized  as  controlhng  the  Inquisition  is  seen  in  all  the 
efforts  of  the  Cortes,  appealing  to  him  to  obtain  a  modification 
of  its  rigors,  although,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Concordia  of  1512 
was  held  to  require  the  assent  of  Inquisitor-general  Enguera  to 
render  it  binding,  with  subsequent  confirmation  by  the  pope 
and  though,  in  later  times,  the  monarchs  found  it  convenient  to 
throw  upon  the  inquisitor-general  the  responsibility  of  rejecting 
the  demands  of  their  subjects. 

Ferdinand  was  too  self-reliant  to  deem  it  necessary  to  assert 
his  power  consistently  on  all  occasions.  In  a  subsequent  chapter 
we  shall  see  that  he  submitted  to  the  inconveniences  arising 
from  an  excommunication  threatened  by  Torquemada  on  re- 
ceivers of  confiscations  who  honored  royal  drafts  in  prefer- 
ence to  paying  salaries.  He  had  no  scruples  in  making  Tor- 
quemada join  with  him  in  grants  of  money  or  in  settling 
competing  claims  on  the  debts  due  to  a  condemned  heretic;  he 
sometimes  allowed  his  cedulas  to  be  countersigned  by  members 
of  the  Suprema,  especially  in  the  later  periods;  indeed,  toward 
the  end  of  his  reign,  this  became  so  habitual  that  in  letters  of 
November  25th  and  December  10,  1515,  he  explained  that  his 
orders  were  to  be.  obeyed  although  not  so  authenticated,  because 
none  of  the  members  happened  to  be  at  hand;  he  sometimes 
delayed  answering  applications  for  instructions  until  he  could 
consult  the  inquisitor-general,  but  the  mere  application  to  him 
shows  that  he  was  regarded  as  the  ultimate  arbiter.  In  fact, 
in  a  case  in  which  some  prisoners  named  Martinez  had  appealed 
to  him,  he  replies  to  the  inquisitors,  September  30,  1498,  and 
March  2,  1499,  that  the  inquisitors-general  send  instructions 
and  it  is  his  will  that  these  should  be  executed,  thus  implying 
that  his  confirmation  was  requisite.^ 

Whatever  participation  he  might  thus  allow  to  the  head  of  the 
Inquisition,  when  he  saw  fit  he  asserted  his  arbitrary  control 
and  he  by  no  means  deemed  it  necessary  to  communicate  with 
the  tribunals  through  the  inquisitor-general  but  frequently 
issued  his  commands  directly.  May_14,  1499,  he  writes  to  an 
inquisitor  to  have  a  certain  confiscated  property  sold  at  an 
appraised  value  to  Diego  de  Alcocer,  no  matter  what  instructions 

^  See  Appendix.  All  this  of  course  is  omitted  from  the  later  official  compila- 
tions. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Libro  1;  Libro  3,  fol.  24,  441,  442. 


CiiAP.  I]  FERDINAND'S  CONTROL  993 

he  may  have  from  the  inquisitors-general  or  what  orders  to  the 
contrary.  Even  for  trifles  he  took  them  sharply  to  task,  as 
when,  May  17,  1511,  he  vigorously  rebuked  one  for  sending 
Bachiller  Vazquez  to  him  on  an  affair  which  could  have  been  as 
well  settled  by  letter  with  much  less  expense.  He  was  fully 
aware  that  the  power  of  the  Inquisition  rested  on  his  support 
and  when  there  was  the  slightest  opposition  to  his  will  he  had 
no  hesitation  in  saying  so,  as  when,  in  a  letter  of  July  22,  1486, 
to  the  inquisitors  of  Saragossa,  he  tells  them  that,  although  they 
have  the  name,  it  is  to  him  and  to  Isabella  that  the  Holy  Oflace 
owes  its  efficiency;  without  the  royal  authority  they  can  do  little 
and,  as  they  recognize  his  good  intentions,  they  must  not  inter- 
fere with  his  orders.^ 

These  instances  illustrate  the  minute  and  watchful  care  which 
he  exercised  over  all  the  details  of  the  Holy  Oflice.  Nothing 
was  too  trivial  to  escape  his  vigilant  attention,  and  this  close 
supervision  was  continued  to  the  end.  The  receiver  of  Valencia 
consults  him  about  a  carpenter's  bill  of  ninety  sueldos  for  repairs 
on  the  royal  palace  occupied  by  the  tribunal  and  Ferdinand 
tells  him,  May  31,  1515,  that  he  may  pay  it  this  time,  but  it  is 
notto  be  a  precedent.  On  January  18th  of  the  same  year  he  had 
written  to  the  receiver  of  Jaen  that  he  learns  that  the  audience- 
chamber  is  ill-furnished  and  that  the  vestments  for  mass  are 
lacking  or  worn  out,  wherefore  he  orders  that  what  the  inquis- 
itors may  purchase  shall  be  paid  for.^ 

Ferdinand's  control  over  the  Inquisition  rested  not  only  on 
the  royal  authority,  the  power  of  appointment,  his  own  force 
of  character  and  his  intense  interest  in  its  workings,  but  also 
on  the  fact  that  he  held  the  purse-strings.  He  had  insisted  that 
the  confiscations  should  enure  to  the  crown,  and  he  subsequently 
obtained  the  pecuniary  penances.  The  Inquisition  had  no 
endowment.  One  could  easily  have  been  provided  out  of  the 
immense  sums  gathered  from  the  victims  during  the  early  years 
of  intense  activity  but,  although  some  slender  provision  of  the 
kind  was  at  times  attempted,  either  the  chronic  demands  of  the 
royal  treasury  or  a  prudent  desire  to  prevent  the  independence 
of  the  institution  rendered  these  investments  fragmentary  and 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  1 ;  Libro  926,  fol.  308. — Arch.  gen. 
de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  103. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  340,  402. 


294  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

wholly  inadequate.  Thus  the  expenses  of  the  tribunals  and  the 
salaries  of  the  officials  were  in  his  hands.  Nothing  could  be 
paid  without  his  authorization  and  the  accounts  of  the  receivers 
of  confiscations,  who  acted  as  treasurers,  were  scrutinized  with 
rigid  care.  He  regulated  the  salary  of  every  official  and  his 
letter-books  are  full  of  instructions  as  to  their  payment.  Besides 
this,  it  was  the  Spanish  custom  to  supplement  inadequate  wages 
with  ayudas  de  costa,  or  gifts  of  greater  or  less  amount  as  the 
whim  of  the  sovereign  or  the  deserts  of  the  individual  might  call 
for.  In  time,  as  we  shall  see,  this  became  a  regular  annual 
payment,  subject  to  certain  conditions  but,  under  Ferdinand, 
it  was  still  an  uncertainty,  dependent  upon  the  royal  favor  and 
the  order  of  the  king  was  requisite  in  each  case,  even  including 
the..  Suprema  and  its  officials.^  The  crown  thus  held  the  Holy 
Office  at  its  mercy  and  the  recipients  of  its  bounty  could  not 
r  esent_its_con  trol . 

Yet  in  this  perpetual  activity  of  Ferdinand  in  the  affairs  of 
the  Inquisition  it  is  to  be  observed  that  he  confined  himself  to 
temporal  matters  and  abstained  from  interference  with  its 
spiritual  jurisdiction.  In  his  voluminous  correspondence,  ex- 
tending, with  occasional  breaks,  over  many  years,  the  exceptions 
to  this  only  serve  to  prove  the  rule.  I  have  met  with  but  two 
and  these  fully  justified  his  interference.  In  1508  the  leading 
barons  of  Aragon  complained  that  the  inquisitors  were  persecuting 
the  Moors  and  were  endeavoring  to  coerce  them  to  baptism. 
As  they  had  no  jurisdiction  over  infidels,  he  rebuked  them 
severely,  telling  them  that  conversion  through  conviction  is 
alone  pleasing  to  God  and  that  no  one  is  to  be  baptized  except 
on  voluntary  application.  So,  when  some  had  been  converted 
and  had  been  abandoned  by  their  wives  and  children,  he  ordered 
the  inquisitors  to  permit  the  return  of  the  latter  and  not  to 
coerce  them  to  baptism.^  The  other  case  was  that  of  Pedro  de 
Villacis,  receiver  of  Seville,  a  man  who  possessed  Ferdinand's 
fullest  confidence.  No  name  occurs  more  frequently  in  the 
correspondence  and  he  was  entrusted  with  the  management  of 
an  enormous  and  most  complicated  composition,  in  which  the 
New  Christians  of  Seville,  Cordova,  Leon,  Granada  and  Jaen 
agreed  to  pay  eighty  thousand  ducats  as  an  assurance  against 
confiscation.      While  deeply  immersed  in  this  the  tribunal  of 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  346-81. 
»  Ibidem,  Libro  926,  fol.  76 


Chap.  I]         INDEPENDENCE  IN  MATTERS  OF  FAITH  295 

Seville  commenced  to  take  testimony  against  him.  On  hear- 
ing of  this  Ferdinand  was  astounded;  he  expressed  indignation 
that  such  action  should  be  taken  without  consulting  him  and 
ordered  all  the  original  papers  to  be  sent  to  him  for  consideration 
with  the  Suprema,  pending  which  and  future  orders  nothing 
further  was  to  be  done.^ 

This  was  an  extreme  case.  There  are  others  which  prove 
how  useless  it  was  to  rely  upon  the  royal  favor  in  hopes  of  inter- 
position. Thus  Ferdinand's  vice-chancellor  for  Aragon  was 
Alonso  de  la  Caballeriaj  a  son  of  that  Bernabos  de  la  Caballeria 
whose  Qelo  de  Cristo  contra  los  Judios  has  been  referred  to 
above  (p.  115).  The  father's  orthodox  zeal  did  not  preserve 
his  children  from  the  Inquisition  and  their  names  and  those 
of  their  kindred  frequently  occur  in  the  records.  Alonso  had 
already  passed  through  its  hands  without  losing  his  position. 
In  December,  1502,  his  brother  Jaime  was  arrested  by  the  tri- 
bunal of  Saragossa,  and  Alonso  ventured  to  ask  Ferdinand's 
intervention  in  his  favor  and  also  for  himself  in  case  he  should 
be  involved  and  be  subjected  to  another  trial.  Ferdinand 
replied,  December  23d,  expressing  regret  and  the  hope  that 
all  would  turn  out  as  he  desired;  if  Alonso's  case  comes  up  again 
he  shall  be  tried  by  Deza  himself  who  can  be  relied  upon  to  do 
exact  justice.  A  second  application  from  Alonso  brought  a 
reply,  January  3,  1503,  reiterating  these  assurances  and  promis- 
ing a  speedy  trial  for  his  brother,  about  whom  he  writes  to  the 
inquisitors.  In  effect,  a  letter  to  them  of  the  same  day  alludes, 
among  other  matters,  to  Jaime's  case,  with  the  customary  injunc- 
tions to  conduct  it  justly  so  as  not  to  injure  the  Inquisition  and 
assuring  them  that  if  they  do  so  they  shall  not  be  interfered 
with.  How  little  the  appeal  to  Ferdinand  benefited  the  accused 
is  seen  in  the  result  that  Jaime  was  penanced  in  an  auto  de  fe 
of  March  25,  1504.=* 

In  one  respect  Ferdinand  showed  favoritism,  but  he  did  so 
in  a  manner  proving  that  he  recognized  that  the  royal  power 
could  not  of  itself  interfere  with  the  exercise  of  inquisitorial 
jurisdiction.  Notwithstanding  his  settled  aversion  to  papal 
intervention,  he  procured  a  series  of  curious  briefs  to  spare  those 
whom  he  favored  from  the  disgrace  of  public  reconciliation  and 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  423. 

^  Ibidem,  Libro  2,  fol.  28,  29,  30. — Libro  Verde  de  Aragon  (Revista  de  Espafia, 
CV,  573). 


296  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

penance  and  their  descendants  from  disabilities.  So  many  of 
his,  trusted  officials  were  of  Jewish  hneage  that  he  might  well 
seek  to  shield  them  and  to  retain  their  services.  Thus,  in  briefs 
of  February  11,  1484,  and  January  30,  1485,  Innocent  VIII 
recites  that  he  is  informed  that  some  of  those  involved  in  this 
heresy  would  gladly  return  to  the  faith  and  abjure  if  they  could 
be  secretly  reconciled,  wherefore  he  confers  on  the  inquisitors 
faculties,  in  conjunction  with  episcopal  representatives,  to 
receive  secretly,  in  the  presence  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  fifty 
persons  of  this  kind  to  abjuration  and  reconciliation.  A  sub- 
sequent brief  of  May  31,  1486,  recites  that  he  learns  that  the 
sovereigns  cannot  always  be  present  on  these  occasions,  where- 
fore he  grants  for  fifty  more  similar  power  to  be  exercised  in  their 
absence  but  with  their  consent.  Then,  July  5,  1486,  the  same 
is  granted  for  fifty  more,  even  if  testimony  has  been  taken 
against  them,  with  the  addition  of  the  removal  of  disabilities 
and  the  stain  of  infamy  in  favor  of  their  children  and  moreover 
it  authorizes  the  secret  exhumation  and  burning  of  fifty  bodies — 
doubtless  the  parents  of  those  thus  favored.  These  transactions 
continued,  for  there  are  similar  letters  of  November  10,  1487, 
and  October  14,  1489,  each  for  fifty  persons  and  fifty  bodies, 
to  be  nominated  by  the  king  and  queen,  and  possibly  there  were 
subsequent  ones  that  have  not  reached  us.^  It  was  doubtless 
under  letters  of  this  kind  that,  on  January  10,  1489,  Elionor  and 
Isabel  Badorch  were  secretly  reconciled  in  the  royal  palace  of 
Barcelona.^ 

These  apparently  trivial  details  are  of  interest  as  revealing 
the  basis  on  which  the  Inquisition  was  established  and  from 
which  it  developed.  They  also  throw  light  on  the  character  of 
Ferdinand,  whose  restless  and  incessant  activity  made  itself 
felt  in  every  department  of  the  government,  enabling  his  resolute 
will  to  break  down  the  forces  of  feudalism  and  lay  the  foundation 
of  absolute  monarchy  for  his  successors.  It  would  be  doing 
him  an  injustice,  however,  to  dismiss  the  subject  without  alluding 

'  Raynald.  Annal.  ann.  1485,  n.  81. — Llorente,  Anales,  I,  109-11. — Bulario 
de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I,  fol.  29,  33,  91,  101,  102.— Archivio  Vaticano, 
Innoc.  VIII,  Regist.  682,  fol.  263,  294.— Fidel  Fita,  Boletin,  XV,  573-8,  587. 

Pastor  (Geschichte  der  Papste,  III,  249)  erroneousl)'  regards  this  private  and 
special  reconciliation  to  be  a  general  decree  of  Innocent  VIII. 

'  Carbonell,  De  Gest.  Hseret.  (Col.  de  Doc.  de  Aragon,  XXVIII,  18,  29). 

Their  father,  Pedro  Badorch,  was  sentenced  to  perpetual  prison  in  the  auto  of 
August  8,  1488,  but  was  released  March  26,  1490. 


Chap.  I]  INSISTENCE  ON  JUSTICE  297 

to  his  anxiety  that  the  Inquisition  should  be  kept  strictly  within 
the  lines  of  absolute  justice  according  to  the  standard  of  the 
period.  Trained  in  the  accepted  doctrine  of  the  Church  that 
heresy  was  the  greatest  of  crimes,  that  the  heretic  had  no  rights 
and  that  it  was  a  service  to  God  to  torture  him  to  death,  he  was 
pitiless  and  he  stimulated  the  inquisitors  to  incessant  vigilance. 
He  was  no  less  eager  in  gathering  in  every  shred  of  spoil  which 
he  could  lawfully  claim  from  the  confiscation  of  the  victims, 
but,  in  the  distorted  ethics  of  the  time,  this  comported  with  the 
strictest  equity,  for  it  was  obedience  to  the  canon  law  which 
was  the  expression  of  the  law  of  God.  There  can  have  been  no 
hy~pocrisy  in  his  constant  instructions  to  inquisitors  and  re- 
ceivers of  confiscations  to  perform  their  functions  with  rectitude 
and  moderation  so  that  no  one  should  have  cause  to  complain. 
This  was  his  general  formula  to  new  appointees  and  is  borne  out 
by  his  instructions  in  the  innumerable  special  cases  where  appeal 
was  made  to  him  against  real  or  fancied  injustice.  His  absti- 
nence from  intrusion  into  matters  of  faith  limited  such  appeals 
to  financial  questions,  but  these,  under  the  cruel  canonical  regu- 
lations as  to  confiscations,  were  often  highly  complicated  and 
involved  the  rights  of  innocent  third  parties.  His  decisions  in 
such  cases  are  often  adverse  to  himself  and  reveal  an  innate 
sense  of  justice  wholly  unexpected  in  a  monarch  who  ranked 
next  to  Cesar  Borgia  in  the  estimation  of  Machiavelli.  An 
instance  or  two,  taken  at  random  out  of  many,  will  illustrate 
this  phase  of  his  character.  July  11,  1486,  he  writes  to  his 
receiver  at  Saragossa  "Fifteen  years  ago,  Jaime  de  Santangel, 
recently  burnt,  possessed  a  piece  of  land  in  Saragossa  and  did  not 
pay  the  ground-rent  on  it  to  Garcia  Martinez.  By  the  fuero  of 
Aragon,  when  such  rent  is  unpaid  for  four  years  the  land  is 
forfeited.  You  are  said  to  hold  the  land  as  part  of  the  con- 
fiscated estate  of  Santangel  and  for  the  above  reason  it  is  said 
to  belong  to  Martinez.  You  are  therefore  ordered  to  see  what 
is  justice  and  do  it  to  Martinez  without  delay  and  if  you  have 
sold  the  land,  the  matter  must  be  put  into  such  shape  that 
Martinez  may  obtain  what  is  due."  In  a  similar  spirit,  when 
Caspar  Roig,  of  Cagliari,  deemed  himself  aggrieved  in  a  trans- 
action arising  out  of  a  composition  for  confiscation,  Ferdinand 
writes  to  the  inquisitor  of  Sardinia,  March  11,  1498,  "As  it  is 
our  will  that  no  one  shall  suffer  injustice,  we  refer  the  case  to  you, 
charging  you  at  once  to  hear  the  parties  and  do  what  is  just,  so 


298  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  GROWN  [Book  II 

that  the  said  Caspar  Roig  shall  suffer  no  wrong.  .  .  .  You 
will  see  that  the  said  Caspar  Roig  shall  not  again  have  to  appeal 
to  us  for  default  of  justice."^ 

It  was  inevitable  that,  when  this  powerful  personality  was 
withdrawn,  the  royal  control  over  the  Inquisition  should  dimin- 
ish, especially  in  view  of  the  inability  of  Queen  Juan  a  to  govern 
and  the  absence  of  the  youthful  Charles  V.  The  government  of 
Spain  practically  devolved  upon  Ximenes,  who  was  Inquisitor- 
general  of  Castile,  while  his  coadjutor  Adrian  speedily  obtained 
the  same  post  in  Aragon.  After  the  arrival  of  Charles  and  the 
death  of  Ximenes,  Adrian  became  chief  of  the  reunited  Inqui- 
sition and  his  influence  over  Charles  in  all  matters  connected 
with  it  was  unbounded.  The  circumstances  therefore  were 
peculiarly  propitious  for  the  development  of  its  practical  inde- 
pendence, although  theoretically  the  supremacy  of  the  crown 
remained  unaltered. 

Thus  the  Suprema,  of  which  we  hear  little  under  Ferdinand, 
at  once  assumed  his  place  in  regulating  all  details.  The  appoint- 
ing power,  even  of  receivers,  who  were  secular  officials,  account- 
able only  to  the  royal  treasury,  passed  into  its  hands.  Thus  a 
letter  of  Ximenes,  March  11,  1517,  to  the  receiver  of  Toledo, 
states  that  there  are  large  amounts  of  uncollected  confiscations, 
wherefore  he  is  directed  to  select  a  proper  person  for  an  assistant 
and  send  him  to  the  Suprema  to  decide  as  to  his  fitness,  so  that 
Ximenes  may  appoint  him  with  its  approval.^  Still,  the  nominat- 
ing power  remained  technically  with  the  crown  and,  when  Charles 
arrived,  he  was  assumed  to  exercise  it  as  Ferdinand  had  done, 
however  little  real  volition  he  may  have  displayed.  In  a  letter 
of  December  11,  1518,  concerning  the  appointment  of  Andres 
Sanchez  de  Torquemada  as  Inquisitor  of  Seville,  Charles  is 
made  to  say  that,  being  satisfied  of  Torquemada's  capacity,  he 
had  charged  him  to  accept  the  office  and  that  with  his  assent 
Adrian  had  appointed  him.  In  another  case,  where  an  abbot, 
to  whom  Adrian  had  offered  the  inquisitorship  of  Toledo,  had  de- 
clined the  office,  Charles  writes,  September  14,  1519,  charging 
him  to  accept  it.^     That  Adrian  could  not  act  alone  was  recog- 

'  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Regist.  3684,  fol.  100. — Archive  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,  Lib.  1. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicien,  Lib.  4,  fol.  95. 
"  Ibidem,  Lib.  9,  fel.  21,  63. 


Chap.  I]  PO  WEB  OF  APPOINTMENT  299 

nized  for,  after  Charles  left  Spain,  in  May,  1520,  questions  arose 
on  the  subject  and,  by  letters  patent  of  September  12th,  he 
formally  empowered  Adrian,  during  his  absence,  to  appoint  all 
inquisitors  and  other  officials/ 

Whether  formal  delegations  of  the  appointing  power  were 
subsequently  made  does  not  appear,  but  practically  it  con- 
tinued with  the  inquisitor-general,  subject  to  an  uncertain  co- 
operation of  the  Suprema,  whose  members  countersigned  the 
commissions,  while,  with  the  subordinate  positions  in  the  tri- 
bunals, the  inquisitors  were  sometimes  consulted,  their  recom- 
mendations received  attention  and  their  remonstrances  were 
heard.  The  various  factors  are  illustrated  in  a  letter  of  the 
Suprema,  August  24,  1544,  to  the  inquisitors  of  Saragossa  who 
had  furnished  a  statement  of  the  quaUfications  of  various 
aspirants  for  the  vacant  post  of  nofario  del  juzgado.  In  reply 
the  Suprema  states  that  its  secretary,  Hieronimo  Zurita,  had 
recommended  Martin  Morales ;  it  had  advised  with  the  inquisitor- 
general  who  had  appointed  him,  but  it  will  bear  in  mind  Barto- 
lome  Malo  and  will  give  him  something  else.^ 

So  far  as  I  am  aware,  Philip  II  never  interfered  with  this 
exercise  of  the  appointing  power.  That  he  threw  the  whole 
responsibility  on  the  inquisitor-general  and  disclaimed  any 
concurrence  for  himself  is  apparent  in  a  series  of  instructions. 
May  8,  1595,  to  the  new  inquisitor-general,  Geronimo  Manrique. 
He  orders  him  to  observe  the  utmost  care  to  select  fit  persons 
for  all  positions  without  favoritism  and,  although  it  is  his  duty 
to  appoint  inquisitors  and  fiscals,  he  should  communicate  his 
selections  in  advance  to  the  Suprema,  as  his  predecessors  had 
always  done,  because  some  of  the  members  may  be  acquainted 
with  the  parties  and  prevent  errors  from  being  made.^  That  a 
supervisory  power,  however,  was  still  recognized  in  the  crown 
is  seen  in  a  consulta  of  June  21,  1600,  presented  to  Phihp  III, 
by  Inquisitor-general  Guevara,  lamenting  the  unfitness  of  many  \/ 
of  the  inquisitors.  With  the  habitual  tenderness  manifested  to 
unworthy  officials  he  did   not  propose  to  dismiss   them  but  to 


^  Gachard,  Correspondence  de  Charles-Quint  avec  Adrian  VI,  p.  236. — Archive 
de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  73,  fol.  105. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  105,  114,  118,  128, 
132,  138,  158,  177,  220,  223,  224. 

^  MSS.  of  Library  of  University  of  Halle,  Yc,  Tom.  17. — Archivo  de  Simancas, 
Lib.  939,  fol.  273. 


300  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

make  a  general  shifting  by  which  the  best  men  should  be  made 
the  seniors  of  the  tribunals.  To  this  the  king  replied  with  a 
caution  about  discrediting  the  Inquisition  and  a  suggestion  that 
the  parties  shifted  should  be  made  to  ask  for  the  change;  he  also 
called  for  their  names  and  the  reasons,  because  he  ought  to  be 
informed  about  all  the  individuals.^ 

This  indicated  a  desire  to  resume  the  close  watchfulness  of 
Ferdinand  which  had  long  since  been  forgotten  in  the  turmoil 
and  absences  of  Charles  V  and  the  secluded  labors  of  Philip  II, 
over  despatches  and  consultas.  A  bureaucracy  was  estabhsh- 
ing  itself  in  which  the  various  departments  of  the  government 
were  becoming  more  or  less  independent  of  the  monarch  and 
Philip  for  the  moment  appeared  disposed  to  reassert  his  authority, 
for,  in  1603,  we  are  told  that  he  made  many  appointments  of 
inquisitors,  fiscals,  and  even  of  minor  officials.^  If  so,  he  was 
too  irresolute,  feeble,  and  fitful  to  carry  out  a  definite  line  of 
pohcy  for  when,  in  1608,  he  issued  the  customary  instructions 
to  a  new  inquisitor,  Sandoval  y  Rojas,  he  merely  repeated  the 
injunctions  of  1595,  with  the  addition  that  transfers  should  also 
be  communicated  to  the  Suprema.^  Yet  in  one  case  he  even 
exceeded  Ferdinand  by  intervening  in  a  case  of  faith.  When 
he  went  to  Toledo  with  his  court  to  witness  the  auto  de  fe  of 
May  10,  1615,  he  asked  to  see  the  sentence  of  Juan  Cote, 
penanced  for  Lvitheranism,  and  made  some  changes  in  the 
meriloH,  or  recital  of  offences,  altered  the  imprisonment  to  per- 
petual and  irremissible  and  added  two  hundred  lashes.  The 
tribunal  consulted  the  Suprema,  which  approved  the  changes  on 
the  supposition  that  the  inquisitor-general  had  participated  in 
them,  but  the  day  after  the  auto  Cote  was  informed  that  the 
Suprema  had  mercifully  remitted  the  scourging.* 

Philip  IV,  in  1626,  on  the  death  of  Inquisitor-general  Pacheco, 
asked  the  Suprema  to  suggest  the  instructions  to  be  given  to 
the  new  incumbent  and  was  advised  to  repeat  those  of  1608. 
He  virtually  admitted  the  power  of  appointment  to  be  vested 
in  that  office  when,  in  the  same  year,  the  Cortes  of  Barbastro 
petitioned  that  in  Aragon  all  the  officials  of  the  tribunals  should 
be  Aragonese  and  he  replied  that  he  would  use  his  authority 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libre  29,  fol.  10. 

*  Archive  de  Alcald,  Estado,  Legajo  3137. 

'  MSS.  of  Library  ef  Univ.  of  Halle,  uhi  sup. 

*  Ibidem,  Yc,  20,  Tom.  9. 


Chap.  I]  POWER  OF  APPOINTMENT  301 

with  the  inquisitor-general  that  a  certain  portion  of  them  should 
be  so.^  Notwithstanding  his  habitual  subservience  to  the  In- 
quisition, however,  he  reasserted  his  prerogative,  in  1640,  by 
appointing  the  Archdeacon  of  Vich  as  Inquisitor  of  Barcelona 
and  he  followed  this,  in  1641  and  1642,  by  several  others,  even 
descending  to  the  secretaryship  of  Lima  which  he  gave  to 
Domingo  de  Aroche.^  This  brought  on  a  struggle,  ending  in  a 
compromise  in  which  the  inquisitor-general  was  sacrificed  to 
the  Suprema.  Papal  intervention  was  deemed  to  be  necessary 
and  a  brief  was  procured  in  March,  1643,  under  which  Philip, 
by  decree  of  July  2,  ordered  that  in  future,  in  all  vacancies 
of  positions  of  inquisitor  and  fiscal,  the  inquisitor-general  and 
Suprema  should  submit  to  him  three  names  from  which  to  make 
selection.  The  Suprema  thus  recognized  was  satisfied,  but  Soto- 
mayor,  the  inquisitor-general,  was  obstinate.  In  June,  Philip 
had  called  for  his  resignation,  which  he  offered  after  some  hesi- 
tation and  expressed  his  feehngs  in  a  protest  presenting  a  sorry 
picture  of  the  condition  of  the  Holy  Office.  The  present  disor- 
ders, he  said,  had  arisen  from  the  multiphcation  of  offices,  whereby 
their  character  had  depreciated  and,  as  the  revenues  were 
insufficient  for  their  support,  they  were  led  to  improper  devices. 
The  Suprema  had  been  powerless  for,  on  various  occasions,  the 
king  had  rewarded  services  in  other  fields  by  the  gifts  of  these 
offices,  when  no  consideration  could  be  given  to  character, 
and  he  had  also  been  forced  to  make  appointments  by  com- 
mands as  imperative  as  those  of  the  king— an  evident  allusion 
to  Olivares.^ 

Sotomayor's  successor,  Arce  y  Reynoso,  conformed  himself 
to  these  new  rules  and,  until  his  death  in  1665,  he  submitted  all 
appointments  and  transfers  to  the  king.  Philip  survived  him 
but  three  months  and,  under  the  regency  which  followed  and  the 
reign  of  the  imbecile  Carlos  II,  the  inquisitor-general  resumed 
the  power  of  appointment  without  consultation.  So  completely 
was  the  royal  supervision  forgotten  that  the  instructions  to 
Inquisitor-general  Rocaberti,  in   1695,  repeat  the  old  formula 


»  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  Tom.  17.— Fueros  en  las  Cortes  de 
Barbastro  y  Calatayud  de  1626,  p.  16  (Zaragoza,  1627). 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  55,  fol.  217. 

'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Ye,  T.  17.— Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inqui- 
sicion, Libro  33,  fof.  846-7, 851;  Libro  35,  fol.  509, 567.— Cartas  de  Jesuitas  (Mem. 
hist,  espanol,  XVII,  35). 


302  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

of  1608.^  In  this,  the  injunction  of  consulting  the  Suprema  was 
displeasing  to  the  Holy  See,  after  its  intervention  in  the  affair 
of  Froilan  Diaz  (of  which  more  hereafter)  had  caused  it  to  take 
sides  in  the  quarrel  over  the  respective  powers  of  the  inquisitor- 
general  and  the  Suprema.  As  the  commission  of  the  former 
was  a  papal  grant,  it  held  that  no  restriction  could  be  placed 
on  him  and,  when  Vidal  Marin  was  appointed,  Clement  XI  sent 
to  him  August  8,  1705,  urgent  instructions  to  uphold  the  dignity 
of  his  office  which  had  exclusive  authority  in  the  premises.^ 

The  command  was  too  agreeable  not  to  be  obeyed  and,  from 
this  time,  the  unrestricted  power  of  appointment  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  inquisitor-general.  About  1765,  a  writer  tells  us 
that  all  salaried  offices  were  filled  by  him  alone.  If  the  king 
wished  to  gratify  some  one  with  a  position  he  would  signify  his 
desire  to  the  inquisitor-general  that  such  person  should  be  borne 
in  mind  at  the  first  vacancy  and  the  royal  wish  was  respected, 
in  the  absence  of  special  objection.  If  such  there  were  it  was 
reported  to  the  king  and  his  decision  was  awaited.^  With  the 
tendency  to  assert  the  prerogative,  under  Carlos  III,  this  was 
called  in  question,  in  1775,  when  the  royal  Camara  scrutinized 
the  brief  commissioning  Fehpe  Bertran  as  inquisitor-general, 
but  the  protest  was  merely  formal;  the  appointing  power  re- 
mained undisturbed;  it  survived  the  Revolution  and  continued 
until  the  Inquisition  was  suppressed.* 

Of  vastly  greater  importance  was  the  power  of  selecting  and 
virtually  dismissing  the  inquisitor-general  and  this  the  crown 
never  lost.  In  fact  this  was  essential  to  its  dignity,  if  not  to  its 
safety.  Had  the  appointment  rested  wdth  the  pope,  either 
the  Inquisition  would  of  necessity  have  been  reduced  to  insig- 
nificance or  the  kingdom  would  have  become  a  dependency 
of  the  curia.  Had  the  Suprema  possessed  the  power  of  presenting 
a  nominee  to  the  pope,  the  Inquisition  would  have  become  an 
independent  body  rivaUing  and  perhaps  in  time  superseding 
the  monarchy.     Yet,   after   the  death   of  Ferdinand,   Cardinal 

1  Archive  de  Alcala,  Estado,  Leg.  3137;  Hacienda,  Legajo  544^  (Libro  10).— 
Bibliotheca  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  G,  61,  fol.  203. 

^  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  V,  fol.  137. 

3  Archive  de  Alcaic,  Estado,  Legajos  2843,  3137.— Archivo  hist,  nacional, 
Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  16,  n.  6. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Leg.  629;  Inquisicion,  Libros  435, 
559. — Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  17,  n.  4. 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQ  UISITOB-GENERALSHIP  303 

Adrian,  when  elected  to  the  papacy,  seemed  to  imagine  that 
Ferdinand's  privilege  of  nomination  had  been  merely  personal 
and  that  it  had  reverted  to  him.  February  19,  1522,  he  wrote 
to  Charles  that  a  successor  must  be  provided;  after  much  thought 
he  had  pitched  on  the  Dominican  General  but  had  not  determined 
to  make  the  appointment  without  first  learning  Charles's  wishes. 
If  the  Dominican  was  not  satisfactory,  Charles  could  name  some 
one  else,  for  which  purpose  he  suggested  three  other  prelates. 
Charles  rephed  from  Brussels,  March  29th,  assuming  the  appoint- 
ment to  be  in  his  hands,  but  ordered  his  representative  Lachaulx 
to  confer  with  Adrian.  He  was  in  no  haste  to  reach  a  decision 
and  it  was  not  until  July  13,  1523,  that  he  instructed  his  am- 
bassador, the  Duke  of  Sessa,  to  ask  the  commission  for  Alfonso 
Manrique,  Bishop  of  Cordova,  on  whom  he  had  conferred  the 
post  of  inquisitor-general  and  the  archbishopric  of  Seville.^ 

The  records  afford  no  indication  of  any  question  subsequently 
arising  as  to  the  power  of  the  crown  to  select  the  inquisitor- 
general.  It  was  never,  however,  officially  recognized  by  the 
popes,  whose  commissions  to  the  successive  nominees  bore  the 
form  of  a  motu  propria — the  spontaneous  act  of  the  Holy  See — 
by  which,  without  reference  to  any  request  from  the  sovereign, 
the  recipient  was  created  inquisitor-general  of  the  Spanish 
dominions  and  was  invested  with  all  the  faculties  and  powers 
requisite  for  the  functions  of  his  office.^  No  objection  seems 
to  have  been  taken  to  this  until  Carlos  III  exercised  a  jealous 
care  over  the  assertion  and  maintenance  of  the  regalias  against 
the  assumptions  of  the  curia.  The  first  appointment  he  had 
occasion  to  make  was  that  of  Felipe  Bertran,  Bishop  of  Sala- 
manca, after  the  death  of  Inquisitor-general  Bonifaz.  Decem- 
ber 27,  1774,  was  despatched  the  appHcation  to  the  papacy  for 
the  commission,  carefully  framed  to  avoid  attributing  to  the 
latter  any  share  in  the  selection  or  appointment  and  merely 
asking  for  a  delegation  of  faculties,  accompanied  with  instruc- 
tions to  the  ambassador  Floridablanca  to  procure  for  Bertran 
a  dispensation  from  residence  at  his  see  during  his  term  of  office. 
Clement  XIV  had  died,  September  22,  1774,  and  the  intrigues 
arising  from  the  suppression  of  the  Jesuits  delayed  the  election 
of  Pius  VI  until  February  15,  1775,  but  on  February  27th  the 

*  Gachard,  Correspondence  de  Charles-Quint  avec  Adrian  VI,  pp.  38,  41,  54, 
66,  75,  95,  193. 

'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  I  de  copias,  fol.  35,  39,  etc. 


304  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

commission  and  dispensation  were  signed.  March  25th,  Carlos 
sent  the  commission  to  the  royal  Camara  for  examination  before 
its  deUvery  to  Bertran  and  the  Camara  reported,  April  24th,  that 
its  fiscal  pronounced  it  similar  to  that  granted  to  Bonif  az  in  1755, 
but  that  it  did  not  express  as  it  should  the  royal  nomination  and 
had  the  form  of  a  motu  propria;  he  also  objected  to  its  granting 
the  power  of  appointment  and  further  that  some  of  the  faculties 
included  infringed  on  the  royal  and  episcopal  jurisdictions, 
while  the  clauses  on  censorship  conflicted  with  the  royal  decrees. 
Under  these  reserves  the  brief  was  ordered  to  be  delivered  to 
Bertran;  whether  or  not  a  protest  was  made  to  the  curia  does 
not  appear,  but  if  it  was  it  was  ineffective  for  the  same  formula 
was  used  in  the  commission  issued  to  Inquisitor-general  Agustin 
Rubin  de  Cevallos,  February  17,  1784/ 

It  may  be  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course  that  the  king  had 
no  power  to  dismiss  an  inquisitor-general  who  held  his  com- 
mission at  the  pleasure  of  the  pope,  but  the  sovereign  had  usu- 
ally abundant  means  of  enforcing  a  resignation.  Whether  that 
of  Alfonso  Suarez  de  Fuentelsaz,  in  1504,  was  voluntary  or 
coerced  is  not  known,  but  the  case  of  Cardinal  Manrique,  the 
successor  of  Adrian,  shows  that  if  an  inquisitor-general  was  not 
forced  to  resign  he  could  be  virtually  shelved.  Manrique,  as 
Bishop  of  Badajoz,  after  Isabella's  death,  had  so  actively  sup- 
ported the  claims  of  Philip  I  that  Ferdinand  ordered  his  arrest;  he 
fled  to  Flanders,  where  he  entered  Charles's  service  and  returned 
with  him  to  Spain,  obtaining  the  see  of  Cordova  and  ultimately 
the  archbishopric  of  Seville.^  Perhaps  he  incurred  the  ill-will  of 
the  Empress  Isabella  soon  after  his  appointment,  for  we  find 
him  complaining,  January  23,  1524,  to  Charles  that  when  in 
Valencia  she  had  ordered  the  disarmament  of  the  familiars  and 
the  arrest  of  Micer  Artes,  a  salaried  ofRcial  of  the  Inquisition, 
violations  of  its  privileges  for  which  he  asked  a  remedy.^  In 
1529,  he  gave  more  serious  cause  of  offence.  When  Charles 
sailed,  July  28th,  to  Italy  for  his  coronation,  he  placed  under 

1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Legajo  629,  fol.  1-14.— See  Appendix. 

The  cost  of  the  briefs  to  Bertran  was  250  ducats  for  the  commission  and  50  for 
the  dispensation.  That  to  Bonif  az  had  been  245;  there  seems  to  have  been  a 
progressive  advance  for  the  briefs  to  Cevallos  cost  him  370. — Ibidem. 

^  Llorente,  Anales,  II,  263. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Sala  40,  Libro  4,  fol.  98. 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP 


305 


charge  of  the  empress  Dona  Luisa  de  Acufia,  heiress  of  the 
Count  of  Valencia,  until  her  marriage  should  be  determined. 
There  were  three  suitors— Manrique's  cousin  the  Count  of 
Trevifio,  heir  apparent  of  the  Duke  of  Najera,  the  Marquis  of 
Astorga  and  the  Marquis  of  Mayorga.  The  empress  placed  her 
ward  in  the  convent  of  San  Domingo  el  Real  of  Toledo,  where 
Manrique  abused  his  authority  by  introducing  his  cousin;  an 
altar  had  been  prepared  in  advance  and  the  marriage  was  cele- 
brated on  the  spot.  The  empress,  justly  incensed,  ordered  him 
from  the  court  to  his  see  until  the  emperor  should  return  and 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  representations  by  the  Suprema,  Decem- 
ber 12th,  of  the  interference  with  the  holy  work  of  the  Inquisition 
and  the  discredit  cast  upon  it.  It  was  probably  to  this  that 
may  be  referred  the  delay  in  his  elevation  to  the  cardinalate, 
announced  March  22,  1531,  after  being  kept  in  petto  since  Decem- 
ber 19,  1529.  On  Charles's  return,  in  1533,  he  was  allowed  to  take 
his  place  again,  but  he  fell  into  disgrace  once  more  in  1534,  when 
he  was  sent  back  to  his  see  where  he  died  at  an  advanced  age 
in  1538.  Still,  this  was  not  equivalent  to  dismissal;  he  con- 
tinued to  exercise  his  functions  and  his  signature  is  appended 
to  documents  of  the  Inquisition  at  least  until  1537.^  Yet  while 
thus  dealing  with  the  inquisitor-general  the  crown  could  exercise 
no  control  over  the  tribunals.  The  empress  was  interested  in 
the  case  of  Fray  Francisco  Ortiz,  arrested  April  6,  1529,  by  the 
tribunal  of  Toledo,  and  she  twice  requested  the  expediting  of  his 
trial  for  which,  October  27,  1530,  she  alleged  reasons  of  state, 
but  the  tribunal  was  deaf  to  her  wishes  as  well  as  to  those  of 
Clement  VII  who  interposed  July  1,  1531,  and  the  sentence  was 
not  rendered  until  April  17,  1532.^ 

There  was  no  occasion  for  royal  interference  with  Inquisitors- 
general  Tavera,  Loaysa  or  Valdes.  If  the  latter  was  forced  to 
resign,  in  1566,  it  was  not  by  order  of  PhiHp  II  but  of  Pius  V  for 
his  part,  as  we  shall   see  hereafter,  in  the  prosecution  of  Car- 

»  Sandoval,  Hist,  de  Carlos  V,  Lib.  xvii,  §  30.— Ciacconii  Vitse  Pontiff.  Ill,  519. 
— Zufiiga,  Anales  de  Sevilla,  Lib.  xiv,  afios  1529,  1534. — Archivo  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,  Libro  77,  fol.  228;  Libro  939,  fol.  62,  115,  134;  Patronato  Real, 
Inquisicion,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  38,  39. 

Llorente  (Hist,  crft.,  cap.  xiv,  art.  ii,  n.  5)  attributes  his  second  disgrace  to 
Charles's  anger  at  the  prosecution  of  his  favorite  preacher  Alonso  Virues,  which 
he  assumed  that  Manrique  ought  to  have  prevented. 

^  Ed.  Bohmer,  Francisca  Herndndez  und  Francisco  Ortiz,  pp.  140,  173. — 
Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  III,  fol.  133. 

20 


306  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

ranza,  Archbishop  of  Toledo.  So  if  Espinosa,  in  1572,  died  in 
consequence  of  a  reproof  from  Philip  II,  it  was  not  for  official 
misconduct  and  merely  shows  the  depth  of  servility  attainable 
by  the  courtiers  of  the  period.  The  reign  of  the  feeble  Philip  III 
however  afforded  several  instances  that  the  royal  will  sufficed 
to  create  a  vacancy.  He  had  scarce  mounted  on  the  throne  as  a 
youth  of  twenty,  on  the  death  of  Phihp  II,  September  13,  1598, 
before  he  sought  to  get  rid  of  Inquisitor-general  Portocarrero, 
who  had,  it  is  said,  spoken  lightly  of  him,  or  had  incurred  the 
ill-will  of  the  favorite,  the  Duke  of  Lerma.  To  effect  this,  a 
bull  was  procured  from  Clement  VIII  requiring  episcopal  resi- 
dence; Portocarrero  was  Bishop  of  Cuenca,  a  see  reputed  to  be 
worth  forty  thousand  ducats  a  year,  but  he  preferred  to  abandon 
this  and  made  fruitless  efforts  at  Rome  to  be  permitted  to  do 
so.  He  left  Madrid  in  September,  1599,  for  Cuenca  and  died 
of  grief  within  a  twelve-month,  refusing  to  make  a  will  because, 
as  he  said,  he  had  nothing  to  leave  but  debts  that  would  take 
two  years'  revenue  of  his  see  to  pay.^  His  successor.  Cardinal 
Fernando  Nifio  de  Guevara  fared  no  better.  He  was  in  Rome 
at  the  time  of  his  appointment  and  did  not  take  possession  of 
his  office  until  December  23,  1599,  but  already  in  May,  1600, 
there  were  rumors  that  he  was  to  be  superseded  by  Sandoval 
y  Rojas,  Archbishop  of  Toledo.  Yet,  in  1601,  he  was  made 
Ai'chbishop  of  Seville  and  he  sought  to  purchase  Philip's  favor 
by  a  gift  of  forty  thousand  ducats  and  nearly  all  his  plate.  This 
was  unavailing  and,  in  January,  1602,  he  was  ordered  to  reside  in 
his  see,  when  he  dutifully  handed  in  his  resignation.^  Juan  de 
Zuhiga,  who  succeeded,  had  a  clause  in  his  commission  per- 
mitting him  to  resign  the  administration  of  his  see  in  the  hands 
of  the  pope,  but  the  precaution  was  superfluous  for  he  died, 
December  20,  1602,  after  only  six  weeks'  enjoyment  of  the 
office,  for  which  he  had  sacrificed  thirty  thousand  ducats  a  year 
from  his  see.  He  was  old  and  feeble  and  his  death  was  attrib- 
uted to  his  coming  in  winter  from  a  warm  climate  to  the  rigors 
of  Valladolid,  then  the  residence  of  the  court.^ 

1  Cabrera,  Relaciones,  pp.  17,  33,  44,  579  (Madrid,  1857).— Hinojosa,  Des- 
pachos  de  la  Diplomacla  Pontificia,  I,  403  (Madrid,  1896). — Bibl.  nacional, 
Seccion  de  MSS.,  li,  16. 

^  Cabrera,  Relaciones,  pp.  50,  56,  67,  112,  129. — Bibl.  nacional,  uhi  siip. — 
Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  IV,  fol.  137. 

'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  loc.  cit. — Cabrera,  Relaciones,  pp.  152,  154, 
159,   162. 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP  307 

The  question  of  non-residence  was  happily  solved,  for  a  time 
at  least,  by  selecting  as  the  next  incumbent  Juan  Bautista  de 
Azevedo,  Bishop  of  ValladoUd,  the  seat  of  the  court.  He  was 
a  person  of  so  Httle  consequence  that  the  appointment  aroused 
general  surprise  until  it  was  recalled  that  he  had  been  a  secretary 
of  Lerma.  When  the  court  removed  to  Madrid,  in  1606,  he  was 
obhged  to  choose  between  the  two  dignities  and  his  resignation 
of  the  bishopric  was  facihtated  by  granting  him  a  pension  of 
twelve  thousand  ducats  on  the  treasury  of  the  Indies,  besides 
which,  as  Patriarch  of  the  Indies,  he  had  a  salary  of  eight  thous- 
and.^ His  death  soon  followed,  in  1608,  when  Sandoval  y  Rojas, 
the  uncle  of  Lerma,  obtained  the  position  without  sacrificing 
his  primatial  see  of  Toledo,  a  dispensation  for  non-residence 
being  doubtless  easily  obtained  by  such  a  personage. 

Sandoval  was  succeeded,  in  1619,  by  Fray  Luis  de  Aliaga,  a 
Dominican  who  had  been  Lerma's  confessor.  In  1608  Lerma 
transferred  him  to  the  king,  over  whom  his  influence  steadily 
increased,  although  his  doubtful  reputation  is  inferable  from  the 
popular  attribution  to  him  of  the  spurious  continuation  of  Don 
Quixote,  published  in  1614  under  the  name  of  Avellaneda — a 
work  of  which  the  buffoonery  and  indecency  are  most  unclerical.^ 
Though  he  owed  his  fortune  to  Lerma,  he  joined,  in  1618,  in 
causing  his  patron's  downfall  in  favor  of  Lerma's  nephew,  the 
Duke  of  Uceda,  and  during  the  rest  of  Philip's  reign  Uceda 
and  Aliaga  virtually  ruled  and  misgoverned  the  land,  filling  the 
offices  with  their  creatures,  selling  justice  and  intensifying  the 
financial  disorders  which  were  bringing  Spain  to  its  ruin.  When 
Philip  IV  succeeded  to  the  throne,  March  31, 1621,  under  tutelage 
to  his  favorite  Olivares,  their  first  business  was  to  dismiss  all 
who  had  been  in  power  under  the  late  king.  The  secular  officials 
were  easily  disposed  of,  but  the  papal  commission  of  the  inquisi- 
tor-general rendered  him  independent  of  the  king;  he  did  not 
manifest  the  accommodating  disposition  of  Portocarrero  and 
Guevara  and,  as  he  was  not  a  bishop,  he  could  not  be  ordered 
to  his  see.  It  illustrates  the  anomalous  position  of  the  Inquisition, 
as  part  of  an  absolute  government,  that  for  some  weeks  the 
question  of  his  removal  was  the  subject  of  repeated  juntas  and 

*  Cabrera,  Relaciones,  pp.  168,  310,  344,  573. — Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS., 
li,  16. 

^  Cabrera,  pp.  252-4.— Ticknor's  Spanish  Literature,  II,  142. — Another  Domin- 
ican, Fray  Juan  Blanco  de  Paz,  is  also  credited  with  the  paternity. 


308  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

consultations,  but  finally,  April  23d,  Philip  wrote,  ordering  him  to 
leave  the  court  within  twenty-four  hours,  for  the  Dominican  Con- 
vent of  Huete,  where  his  superior  would  give  him  further  instruc- 
tions. He  obeyed,  but  he  refused  the  bishopric  of  Zamora  and 
the  continuance  of  his  ecclesiastical  revenues  as  the  price  of 
his  resignation.  The  only  method  left  was  to  obtain  from 
Gregorj^  XV  the  withdrawal  of  his  delegated  powers  by  repre- 
senting his  unworthiness,  his  guilty  complicity  with  Uceda  and 
Osuna  and  Philip  Ill's  reproach  to  him  on  his  death-bed  for 
misguiding  his  soul  to  perdition.  Gregory  listened  favorably 
and  Aliaga  seems  to  have  recognized  the  untenableness  of  his 
position  and  to  have  resigned,  although  no  evidence  of  it  exists. 
All  we  know  is  that  Andres  Pacheco,  Bishop  of  Cuenca,  was 
appointed  as  his  successor  in  February,  1622,  and  took  posses- 
sion of  the  oflSce  in  April.  Even  after  this  Aliaga  was  an  object 
of  apprehension.  In  June,  1623,  he  came  to  Hortaleza,  which 
was  within  a  league  or  two  of  Madrid.  Immediately  the  court 
was  in  a  flutter;  the  king  held  earnest  consultations;  his  propin- 
quity was  regarded  as  dangerous  and  he  could  not  be  allowed 
to  return,  as  he  had  asked,  to  his  native  xA.ragon,  which  was 
in  a  chronically  inflammable  condition,  while  in  Valencia  his 
brother  was  archbishop;  nor  could  he  be  allowed  to  leave  the 
kingdom,  possessing  as  he  did  so  intimate  a  knowledge  of  state 
secrets.  There  were  messages  and  active  correspondence  and 
finally  he  was  allowed  to  settle  in  Guadalajara  with  ample 
means,  where  his  remaining  three  years  of  life  passed  in  ob- 
scurity. Llorente  tells  us  that  proceedings  were  commenced 
against  him  for  propositions  savoring  of  Lutheranism  and 
materialism,  which  were  discontinued  after  his  death,  a  device 
doubtless  adopted  to  keep  him  in  retirement.^ 

Andres  Pacheco,  who  succeeded  him  in  1622,  prudently  re- 
signed his  see  of  Cuenca  and,  in  spite  of  his  audacious  enforcement 
of  inquisitorial  claims,  was  allowed  to  hold  the  office  until  his 
death,  April  7,  1626.^  There  was  no  haste  in  filHng  the  vacancy, 
for  it  was  not  until  August  6th  that  Olivares  replied  to  the  king's 
order  to  report  in  writing  the  best  persons  to  fill  the  office.    He 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Legajo  621,  fol,  11. — Archive  de 
Alcala,  Estado,  Leg.  2843. — Cabrera,  Relaciones,  p.  588. — Cespedes  y  Meneses, 
Historia  de  FeHpe  Quarto,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  3. — Pellegrini,  Relazioni  di  Ambasciatori 
Lucchesi,  p.  62  (Lucca,  1903). — Tilorente,  Hist.  crft.  Cap.  xxxviii,  Art.  1,  n.  18. 

^  Bibl   nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  Ii,  16. 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP  309 

named  four,  covertly  indicating  his  preference  for  Cardinal 
Zapata,  who  had  resigned  the  archbishopric  of  Burgos  in  1605 
and  at  the  time  was  governor  of  that  of  Toledo.  Philip  followed 
the  suggestion  by  an  endorsement  on  the  paper,  which  was  a 
singularly  informal  appointment,  remarking  at  the  same  time 
that  the  choice  should  not  be  made  public  until  his  successor 
at  Toledo  was  selected.^  His  resignation  of  the  office,  in  1632, 
is  commonly  attributed  to  a  request  from  the  king,  but  this  is 
by  no  means  certain.  He  was  more  than  eighty  years  of  age 
and  for  some  time  had  been  talking  of  resigning;  already  in 
1630  the  Suprema  alludes  in  a  consulta  to  the  publicity  of  his 
intention  of  relieving  himself  of  the  charge.  Possibly  at  the 
end  some  gentle  pressure  may  have  been  used,  but  when, 
September  6,  1632,  the  commission  of  his  successor  arrived, 
his  parting  with  the  king  was  in  terms  of  mutual  respect  and 
good  feeling.  His  retirement  was  softened  by  continuing  to 
him  his  full  salary  and  perciuisites,  amounting  to  1,353,625  mrs. 
(3620  ducats)  which,  as  the  Suprema  never  had  enough  revenue 
for  its  desires,  was  not  cordially  welcomed.^ 

His  successor,  the  Dominican  Fray  Antonio  de  Sotomayor, 
was  Archbishop  of  Damascus  in  partihus  and  confessor  of  the 
king.  He  was  already  in  his  seventy-seventh  year  and,  when 
he  had  held  his  office  for  eleven  years,  his  infirmities  and  in- 
capacity became  more  evident  to  others  than  to  himself.  Early 
in  1643  the  fall  of  Olivares  deprived  him  of  support,  his  oppo- 
sition to  the  king  in  the  matter  of  appointments  still  further 
weakened  his  position  and  in  June  he  was  requested  to  resign 
in  view  of  his  advanced  age  and  to  preserve  his  health.  He 
was  much  disturbed  and  consulted  friends,  who  advised  him  to 
obey,  but  he  still  held  on,  saying  that  they  might  await  his  death. 
Greater  pressure  was  apphed  to  which  he  yielded.  June  20th 
he  made  a  formal  notarial  attestation  of  his  desire  to  be  relieved 
on  account  of  his  great  age  and  the  next  day  he  sent  in  an  un- 
gracious resignation,  followed,  on  the  24th  by  one  addressed  to 
the  pope.     His  successor,  Diego  de  Arce  y  Reynoso,  Bishop  of 

1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Leg.  621,  fol.  57.  "Pareceme  para 
este  oficio  mas  A  proposito  el  Cardenal  Qapata,  y  asi  le  hago  md  de  el,  pero  no  se 
ha  de  publicar  asta  ser  quien  sera  aproposito  para  el  cargo  del  Gobernador  del 
Arzobispado  de  Toledo,  por  que  es  mi  voluntad  que  salgan  con  los  officios  en  una 
dia." 

^  Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  X,  157.— Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion, 
Libro  31,  fol.  34,  637. 


310  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  GROWN  [Book  II 

Plasencia,  was  already  on  the  spot,  exercising  some  of  the  func- 
tions, but  Urban  VIII  hesitated  to  confirm  the  change  and 
required  explanations.  It  was  not  until  September  18th  that 
the  commission  of  Arce  y  Reynoso  was  expedited  and  it  only 
reached  Madrid  November  7th.  Sotomayor  was  "jubilated" 
with  half  his  salary  of  nine  thousand  ducats,  which  he  enjoyed 
for  five  years  longer.^ 

Arce  y  Reynoso,  as  we  shall  see,  when  embroiled  with  Rome 
in  the  prosecution  of  Villanueva,  Marquis  of  Villalva,  was  obliged 
to  resign  his  see  of  Plasencia,  December  2,  1652,  in  order 
to  retain  his  inquisitor-generalship.  He  continued  in  office 
until  his  death,  June  20,  1665,  followed  by  that  of  PhiUp,  Sep- 
tember 16th.  During  this  interval,  Philip  gave  the  appointment 
to  Pascual  of  Aragon,  son  of  the  Duke  of  Cardona  and  serving 
at  the  time  as  Viceroy  of  Naples.  He  promptly  sailed  for  Spain 
and,  though  he  is  said  to  have  resigned  without  acting,  there  are 
documents  of  October  and  November,  1665,  which  show  that 
he  performed  the  functions  of  the  office.^  He  obtained  the  see 
of  Toledo  March  7,  1666,  and  desired  to  retain  the  inquisitor- 
generalship,  but  the  Queen-regent,  Maria  Ana  of  Austria,  com- 
pelled him  to  resign,  in  order  to  fill  the  place  with  her  confessor 
and  favorite  the  German  Jesuit,  Johann  Everardt  Nithard.^ 

Nithard,  in  1668,  boasted  that  he  had  had  charge  of  the  queen's 
conscience  for  twenty-four  years,  during  which  she  had  kept 
him  constantly  with  her.  He  had  thus  moulded  her  character 
from  youth  and,  as  she  was  weak  and  obstinate,  he  had  rendered 
himself  indispensable.  Her  selection  of  him  as  inquisitor-general 
provoked  lively  opposition,  which  even  reverence  for  royalty 
could  not  repress;  protests  were  presented,  leading  to  prolonged 
and  heated  discussion,  but  resistance  was  in  vain.*  He  was 
appointed  October  15,  1666,  and  speedily  became  the  ruler  of 
the  kingdom  which  he  misgoverned.  The  general  dissatisfac- 
tion thus  aroused  was  stimulated  by  the  jealousy  of  the  frailes, 


^  Cartas  de  Jesuitas  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  T.  XVII,  pp.  110,  116,  122,  143,  172 
235,  255). — Pellicer,  Avisos  (Valladares,  Semanario  erudito,  XXXIII,   104). — 
Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  126,  fol.  2.     (See  Appendix). 

*  Cartas  del  Consejo,  Tom.  xiii  (MSS.  of  American  Philosophical  Society), 
'  Candamo,  Controversias  en  la  menor  edad  de  Carlos  II  (Semanario  enidito, 

IV,  7). 

*  There  is  a  voluminous  collection  of  documents  on  the  subject  in  the  Simancas 
archives,  Inquisicion,  Libro  33,  fol.  963-1100. 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQUISITOB-GENEBALSHIP  311 

who  had  been  accustomed  to  see  Dominicans  as  royal  con- 
fessors and  whose  hatred  of  the  Company  of  Jesus  was  exacer- 
bated by  his  combination  of  that  position  with  the  inquisitor- 
generalship.  He  was  accused  of  filling  the  Holy  Office  with 
Jesuit  calificadores,  under  whose  advice  he  managed  it,  and  with 
accumulating  for  himself  pensions  amounting  to  sixty  thousand 
ducats  a  year.  Spain  at  the  time  had  a  pinchbeck  hero  in  the 
person  of  the  second  Don  Juan  of  Austria,  son  of  PhiHp  IV  by 
a  woman  known  as  la  Calderona;  he  stood  high  in  popular 
esteem,  for  he  had  the  reputation  of  suppressing  the  Neapohtan 
revolt  of  1648  and  of  ending  the  Catalan  rebellion  by  the  capture 
of  Barcelona  in  1652.  Between  him  and  Nithard  there  inevi- 
tably arose  hostility  which  ripened  into  the  bitterest  hatred. 
To  get  him  out  of  the  country,  he  was  given  command  of  an 
expedition  about  to  sail  for  Flanders;  he  v/ent  to  Corufia  but 
refused  to  sail;  he  was  ordered  to  retire  to  Consuegra,  whither 
a  troop  of  horse  was  sent  to  arrest  him,  but  he  had  fled  to  Cata- 
lonia, leaving  a  letter  addressed  to  the  queen  in  which  he  said 
that  the  execrable  wickedness  of  Nithard  had  forced  him  to 
provide  for  his  safety;  his  refusal  to  sail  had  been  caused  by  his 
desire  to  remove  from  her  side  that  wild  beast,  so  unworthy  of 
his  sacred  office;  he  did  not  propose  to  kill  him  for  he  did  not 
wish  to  plunge  into  perdition  a  soul  in  such  evil  state,  but  he 
would  devote  himself  to  relieving  the  kingdom  of  this  basilisk, 
confident  that  the  queen  would  recognize  the  service  thus  rendered 
to  the  king. 

This  letter  and  a  similar  one  of  November  13th  were  widely 
circulated  and  inflamed  the  popular  detestation  of  Nithard. 
Don  Juan  stood  forward  as  the  champion  of  the  people  against 
the  hated  foreigner  and  continued  to  issue  inflammatory  ad- 
dresses. Letters  came  pouring  into  the  court,  from  the  cities 
represented  in  the  Cortes,  praying  the  queen  to  accede  to  his 
demands  but,  though  her  councillors  wavered,  she  stood  firm. 
December  3d  she  wrote  to  him  to  return  to  Consuegra  or  to  come 
near  to  Madrid,  where  negotiations  could  be  carried  on.  While 
taking  advantage  of  this  he  avoided  the  trap  by  writing  that, 
as  his  life  was  endangered,  her  envoy,  the  Duke  of  Osuna,  had 
furnished  him  with  a  guard  of  three  companies  of  horse — about 
250  men  in  all.  With  this  escort  he  started  from  Barcelona  by 
way  of  Saragossa.  It  was  in  vain  that  orders  were  sent  from 
the  court  to  insult  him  on  the  road.      Everywhere  his  journey 


312  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

was  like  a  royal  progress.  Nobles  and  peoples  gathered  to  applaud 
him  and,  in  Saragossa  even  the  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition  bore 
a  part,  while  the  students  carried  around  the  effigy  of  a  Jesuit 
and  burnt  it  before  the  Jesuit  house,  forcing  the  rector  to  witness 
it  from  the  window. 

As  he  drew  near  to  Madrid  with  his  handful  of  men,  Nithard 
called  on  the  nobles  of  his  party  to  assemble  with  their  armed 
retainers,  but  the  Council  of  Regency  prohibited  this.  Don  Juan 
was  in  no  haste;  on  February  9th  he  reached  Junquera,  some  ten 
leagues  from  Madrid  and,  on  the  22d,  he  was  at  Torrejon  de  Ardoz, 
about  five  leagues  distant.  Imminent  danger  was  felt  that  if 
he  advanced  the  populace  would  rise  and  murder  the  ministers 
to  whom  they  attributed  their  sufferings,  and  all  idea  of  resist- 
ance was  abandoned.  Nithard  induced  the  papal  nuncio  to  see 
Don  Juan,  February  24th,  and  ask  further  time  for  negotiation 
but  at  9  P.M.  the  nuncio  returned  with  word  that  Nithard  must 
leave  Spain  at  once.  The  Royal  Council  sat  until  10  p.m.  and 
reached  the  same  conclusion.  The  next  day  the  city  was  in 
an  uproar;  people  carried  their  valuables  to  the  convents  for 
safe  keeping  and  a  mob  assembled  around  the  palace,  where  the 
Junto  de  Gobierno  drew  up  a  decree  that  Nithard  must  depart 
within  three  hours.  It  bore  that  he  had  supplicated  permission 
to  leave  and  in  granting  it  the  queen,  to  express  her  satisfaction 
with  his  services,  appointed  him  ambassador  to  Germany  or  to 
Rome  as  he  might  elect,  with  retention  of  all  his  offices  and 
salaries.  The  queen  signed  this  and  the  Archbishop  of  Toledo 
and  the  Count  of  Peiiaranda  were  deputed  to  carry  it  to 
Nithard,  who  received  it  without  a  trace  of  emotion  and  placed 
himself  at  their  disposal.  It  was  arranged  that  they  should 
call  for  him  at  6  p.m.  The  archbishop  and  the  Duke  of  Maqueda 
came  with  two  coaches  and  Nithard  entered,  carrying  with  him 
nothing  but  his  breviary.  Thrice,  in  the  streets,  the  howling 
mob  threatened  an  attack,  but  were  deterred  by  the  sight  of  a 
cross  with  which  the  archbishop  had  prudently  provided  him- 
self. They  drove  him  to  Fuencarral,  about  two  leagues  from 
the  city  and  left  him  at  the  house  of  the  cura.  The  next  day 
he  went  to  San  Agustin,  about  ten  leagues  distant,  where  he 
lingered  for  awhile  in  the  vain  hope  of  recall. 

Don  Juan  fell  back  to  Guadalajara,  where  terms  were  agreed 
upon,  the  principal  articles  being  that  Nithard  should  imme- 
diately resign  all  his  offices  and  never  return  to  Spain  and  that 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP  31 3 

Diego  cle  Valladares,  Don  Juan's  special  enemy,  should  have 
nothing  to  do  in  any  matter  affecting  him.  Nithard  accordingly 
went  to  Rome,  but  he  had  no  commission  to  show  and  no  instruc- 
tions. He  reported  this  to  the  Council  of  State,  which  told 
him  to  urge  the  definition  by  the  Holy  See  of  the  Immaculate 
Conception.  The  queen  endeavored  by  a  subterfuge  to  obtain 
for  him  a  cardinal's  hat,  which  had  been  promised  to  Spain,  but 
failed.  He  still  hoped  for  a  return  to  his  honors,  stimulated  by 
the  correspondence  of  his  confidential  agent,  the  Jesuit  Salinas, 
but  a  letter  warning  him  not  to  resign  the  inquisitor-generalship, 
for  things  were  tending  towards  his  return,  with  a  lodging  in  the 
queen's  palace,  chanced  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  nuncio, 
who  placed  it  where  it  would  do  the  most  good.  The  result 
was  a  peremptory  order  for  him  to  resign  in  favor  of  Valladares, 
who  had  been  nominated  as  his  successor.  When  this  was 
handed  to  him  by  San  Roman,  the  Spanish  ambassador,  he  is 
said  to  have  fainted  and  not  to  have  recovered  his  senses  for  an 
hour.  The  coveted  cardinal's  hat  was  bestowed  on  Portocarrero, 
Dean  of  Toledo,  and  when  the  news  of  this  reached  the  queen  it 
threw  her  into  a  tertian  fever.  The  Jesuit  General  Oliva,  seeing 
Nithard  thus  stripped  of  his  offices  and  offended  at  his  arrogance, 
ordered  him  to  leave  Rome  and  he  retired  to  a  convent,  but  he 
was  amply  provided  with  funds  and,  for  some  years  at  least, 
he  was  carried  on  the  books  of  the  Suprema  and  received  his 
salary  regularly.  Moreover,  in  1672,  the  queen  procured  from 
Clement  X  what  Clement  IX  had  persistently  refused  and 
Nithard  was  created  Archbishop  of  Edessa  and  cardinal.^ 

Valladares  had  received  his  appointment  September  15,  1669. 
It  was  not  until  1677  that  he  resigned  his  see  of  Plasencia  and 
he  held  the  inquisitor-generalship  until  his  death,  January  29, 
1695.  He  was  succeeded  by  Juan  Thomas  de  Rocaberti,  Arch- 
bishop of  Valencia,  for  whom  Innocent  XII,  at  the  request  of 
Carlos  II,  granted  a  dispensation  from  residence,  conditioned 
on  his  making  proper  provision  for  the  spiritual  and  temporal 
care  of  his  see.'    He  died  June  13, 1699,  and  his  successor,  Alfonso 

^  Candamo,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  4-239). — Memorias  historicas  de  la  Monarquia  de 
Espafia  (Semanario  erudito,  XIV,  19).— MSS.  of  the  Royal  Library  of  Munich, 
Cod.  Ital.  191,  fol.  710.— Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisieion,  Leg.  1476,  fol.  3. 

'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  V,  fol.  118.  This  continued  to  be  the 
practice,  requiring  a  renewal  of  the  brief  every  three  years  until  1774,  when,  as 
we  have  seen,  Felipe  Beltran  obtained  a  dispensation  good  for  his  tenure  of  office, 
a  favor  repeated  to  his  successors. 


314  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

Fernandez  de  Aguilar,  Cardinal  of  Cordova,  followed  him  Sep- 
tember 19th,  the  very  day  that  his  commission  arrived,  after 
a  brief  illness  and  not  without  grave  suspicions  of  poison/  The 
choice  then  fell  on  Balthasar  de  Mendoza  y  Sandoval,  Bishop  of 
Segovia,  who  became  involved,  as  we  shall  see,  in  a  deadly 
quarrel  with  his  colleagues  of  the  Suprema  over  the  case  of  Fray 
Froilan  Diaz.  In  the  confusion  of  the  concluchng  months  of  the 
disastrous  reign  of  Carlos  II,  who  died  November  1,  1700, 
Mendoza  made  the  mistake  of  embracing  the  Austrian  sitle;  his 
arbitrary  action,  in  the  case  of  Froilan  Diaz,  served  as  a  sufficient 
excuse  for  his  removal  and  Philip  V,  apparently  in  1703,  ordered 
him  to  return  to  his  see.  He  is  generally  said  to  have  resigned 
in  1705  but,  in  the  papal  commission,  March  24,  1705,  for  his 
successor  Vidal  Marin,  Clement  XI  states  that  he  has  seen  fit  to 
relieve  Mendoza  of  the  office  because  his  presence  is  necessary 
at  Segovia.^  Vidal  Marin  served  till  his  death  in  1709  and  so 
did  his  successor  Riva-Herrera,  Archbishop  of  Saragossa,  who, 
however,  enjoyed  his  dignity  for  little  more  than  a  year, 

Philip  V  had  brought  to  Spain  the  Gallicanism  and  the  prin- 
ciples of  high  royal  prerogative  which  were  incompatible  with 
the  pretensions  of  the  curia  and  the  quasi-independence  of  the 
Inquisition.  With  the  Bourbons  there  opens  a  new  era  in  the 
relations  between  the  crown  and  the  Holy  Office.  Yet  in  his 
first  open  trial  of  strength,  Philip's  fatal  vacillation,  under  the 
varying  influences  of  his  counsellors,  confessors  and  wives,  left 
him  with  a  dubious  victory.  In  1711  he  selected  as  inquisitor- 
general  Cardinal  GiucUce,  Archbishop  of  Monreal  in  Sicily,  a 
Neapolitan  of  much  ambition  and  little  scruple.  The  recognition 
of  the  Archduke  Charles  as  King  of  Spain  by  Clement  XI,  in 
1709,  had  caused  relations  to  be  broken  off  between  Madrid  and 
Rome.  Philip  dismissed  the  nuncio,  closed  the  tribunal  of  the 
nunciatura  and  forbade  the  transmission  of  money  to  Rome. 
There  was  talk  in  the  curia  of  reviving  the  medieval  methods 
of  reducing  disobedient  monarchs  to  submission  and  Philip,  to 
prepare  for  the  struggle,  ordered,  December  12,  1713,  the  Council 
of  Castile  to  draw  up  a  statement  of  the  regalias  which  would 
justify  resistance  to  the  demands  of  the  curia  and  to  the  juris- 
diction exercised  by  nuncios.    It  was  a  quarrel  which  had  been 


*  Proceso  contra  Fray  Froilan  Dfaz,  pp.  143-44. 

*  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  V,  fol.  133. 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP  315 

in  progress  for  a  century  and  a  half,  now  breaking  out  fiercely 
and  then  smothered,  but  none  the  less  bitter.  The  Council 
entrusted  the  task  to  its  fiscal,  Melchor  Rafael  de  Macanaz,  a 
hard-headed  lawyer,  fully  imbued  with  convictions  of  royal 
prerogative,  whose  report  was,  in  general  and  in  detail,  thoroughly 
subversive  of  Ultramontanism  and  consequently  most  distaste- 
ful to  the  curia/  When  it  was  presented  to  the  council,  December 
19th,  Don  Luis  Curiel  and  some  others  prevented  a  vote  and 
asked  for  copies  that  they  might  consider  the  matter  maturely. 
Copies  were  given  to  each  member,  consideration  was  postponed 
and,  on  February  14,  1714,  Mohnes,  the  ambassador  at  Rome, 
reported  that  copies  had  been  sent  there  by  Curiel,  Giudice 
and  Belluga,  Bishop  of  Murcia.  Although  it  was  a  secret  state 
paper,  the  curia  issued  a  decree  condemning  it  and,  coupled 
with  it,  an  old  work,  Barclay's  reply  to  Bellarmine  and  a  French 
defence  of  the  royal  prerogative  by  Le  Vayer,  attributed  to 
President  Denis  Talon.  Such  a  decree  could  not  be  published 
in  Spain  without  previous  submission  to  the  Royal  Council,  but 
Giudice  was  rehed  upon  to  evade  this.  He  was  nothing  loath, 
for  he  had  an  old  quarrel  vaih.  Macanaz,  who  had  prevented  his 
obtaining  the  archbishopric  of  Toledo,  his  enmity  being  so 
marked  that  at  one  time  Phihp,  to  separate  them,  had  sent 
Macanaz  to  France  with  the  title  of  ambassador  extraordinary, 
but  without  functions.  At  the  moment  Giudice  was  ambassador 
to  France  and  the  decree  was  sent  to  him;  he  dechned  to  act 
unless  assured  of  the  protection  of  the  courts  of  Rome  and 
Vienna  and,  on  receiving  pledges  of  this,  he  signed  it,  July  30th 
as  inquisitor-general  and  sent  it  to  the  Suprema  for  pubHcation. 
Four  of  the  members  promptly  signed  it  and  had  it  published 
at  high  mass  in  the  churches  on  August  15th.  This  created  an 
immense  sensation  and  exaggerated  accounts  were  circulated 
of  the  errors  and  heresies  contained  in  the  unknown  legal  argu- 
ment which  Macanaz  had  prepared  in  the  strict  Hne  of  his  duty. 
When  Philip  was  informed  the  next  day  of  this  audacious 
proceeding  he  called  into  consultation  his  confessor  Robinet 
and  three  other  theologians,  who  submitted  on  the  17th  an 
opinion  in  writing  that  the  Suprema  should  be  required  to 
suspend  the  edict  and  that  Giudice  should  be  dismissed  and 
banished.    The  Suprema  obeyed,  excusing  itself  on  the  pretext 

*  Printed  by  Llorente,  Coleccion  Diplomdtica,  p.  27. 


316  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

that  it  had  supposed,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  Giudice  had  sub- 
mitted the  edict  to  the  king.  He  was  not  satisfied  with  this  and 
dismissed  three  of  them,  but  they  refused  to  smTender  their 
places.  Then  he  summoned  a  meeting  of  the  Council  of  Castile, 
pointing  out  that,  if  such  things  were  permitted,  the  kingdom 
would  be  reduced  to  vassalage  under  the  Dataria  and  other 
tribunals  of  the  curia;  the  Council  was  not  to  separate  until 
every  member  had  recorded  his  opinion  as  to  the  measures  to  be 
taken.  Seven  of  them  voted  for  dismissing  and  banishing 
GiucUce,  while  four  showed  themselves  favorable  to  the  Inquisi- 
tion. Meanwhile,  on  the  17th,  Phihp  had  despatched  a  courier 
to  Paris  summoning  Giudice  to  return  and  informing  Louis  XIV 
of  the  affair.  The  latter,  recognizing  that  the  decree  was  an 
assault  on  the  French  as  well  as  the  Spanish  regalias,  refused  to 
Giudice  a  farewell  audience  and  sent  his  confessor  Le  Tellier 
to  tell  him  that,  were  he  not  certain  that  Philip  would  punish 
him  condignly,  he  would  do  so  himself.  When  Giudice  reached 
Bayonne  he  was  met  by  an  order  not  to  enter  Spain  until  the 
edict  should  be  revoked.  He  replied  submissively,  enclosing 
his  resignation,  whereupon  PhiHp  commanded  him  to  return  to 
his  archbishopric — a  command  which  he  did  not  obey.  Felipe 
Antonio  Gil  de  Taboada  was  appointed  inquisitor-general  and,  on 
February  28,  1715,  his  commission  was  despatched  from  Rome; 
probably  the  Suprema  interposed  difficulties  for  he  never  served ; 
he  obtained  the  post  of  Governor  of  the  Council  of  Castile,  to  be 
rewarded  subsequently  with  the  archbishopric  of  Seville.^ 

Meanwhile  there  was  a  court  revolution.    Maria  Luisa  of  Savoy, 


*  Belando,  Historia  civil  de  Espana  desde  1700  hasta  1733,  P.  iv,  cap.  ix,  xv 
(Madrid,  1744).  See  also  Macanaz's  Commentary  on  Feyjoo's  Teatro  Critico 
(Semanario  erudito,  VIII,  27-9). 

This  volume  of  Belando's  work  was  examined  by  the  Council  of  Castile,  before 
a  license  to  print  was  issued,  and  was  subjected  to  a  second  examination  by  order 
of  Philip,  before  he  would  permit  its  dedication  to  himself  and  his  queen.  This, 
and  the  secret  documents  which  it  contains,  show  that  its  account  of  the  Giudice 
affair  may  be  regarded  as  authentic.  This  did  not  save  the  book  from  the  Inquisi- 
tion which  condemned  it  in  1744  and,  when  the  author  asked  to  be  heard  in  its 
defence  and  offered  to  make  any  changes  required,  he  was  thrown  into  prison  and 
then  relegated  to  a  convent  with  orders  to  write  no  more  books. — Llorente,  Hist, 
crit..  Cap.  xxv,  Art.  i,  n.  12. 

The  Marquis  of  San  Felipe  gives  an  account  of  the  affair  much  less  favorable 
to  Macanaz  and  the  royal  prerogative. — Memoires  pour  servir  k  I'Histoire 
d'Espagne  sous  le  Regne  de  Philippe  V,  III,  120  sqq.  (Amsterdam,  1756). 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP  317 

Philip's  wife,  died  February  11,  1714.  The  Princesse  des  Ursins, 
who  had  accompanied  her  to  Spain  and  had  become  the  most 
considerable  personage  in  the  kingdom,  desired  to  find  a  new 
bride  whom  she  could  control.  GiuHo  Alberoni,  an  adroit 
Italian  adventurer,  was  then  serving  as  the  envoy  of  the  Duke 
of  Parma  and  persuaded  her  that  Elisabeth  Farnese,  the  daughter 
of  his  patron,  would  be  subservient  to  her,  and  the  match  was 
arranged.  December  11,  1714,  Ehsabeth  reached  Pampeluna 
and  found  Alberoni  there  ready  to  instruct  her  as  to  her  course 
and  his  teaching  bore  speedy  fruit.  Des  Ursins  had  also  hastened 
to  meet  the  new  queen  and  was  at  Idiaguez,  not  far  distant, 
where  she  received  from  the  imperious  young  woman  an  order 
to  quit  Spain.  Alberoni,  who  was  in  league  with  Giudice  and 
hated  Macanaz,  painted  him  to  Elisabeth  in  the  darkest  colors 
and  his  ruin  was  resolved  upon. 

He  had  been  pursuing  his  duty  as  Fiscal-general  of  the  Council 
of  Castile;  in  July,  1714,  he  had  occasion  to  make  another  report 
on  the  notorious  evils  of  the  Religious  Orders,  pointing  out  the 
necessity  of  their  reform  and  asserting  that  the  pope  is  not  the 
master  of  ecclesiastical  property  and  spiritual  profits.  Some 
months  later  he  was  called  upon  to  draw  up  a  complete  reform 
of  the  Inquisition,  suggested  doubtless  by  the  pending  conflict, 
for  which  an  occasion  was  found  in  an  insolent  invasion  of  the 
royal  rights  by  the  tribunal  of  Lima.  The  Council  of  Indies 
complained  that  the  latter  had  removed  from  the  administra- 
tion of  certain  properties  indebted  to  the  royal  treasury  the 
person  appointed  by  the  Chamber  of  Accounts,  on  the  plea  that 
the  owner  was  also  a  debtor  to  the  Inquisition.  Philip  V  there- 
upon ordered  Macanaz,  in  conjunction  with  D.  Martin  de  Miraval, 
fiscal  of  the  Council  of  Indies,  to  make  a  report  covering  all  the 
points  on  which  the  Holy  Office  should  be  reformed.  The  two 
fiscals  presented  their  report  November  14,  1714,  exhaustively 
reviewing  the  invasions  of  the  royal  jurisdiction  which,  as  we 
shall  see  hereafter,  were  constant  and  audacious,  and  their 
recommendations  were  framed  with  a  view  of  rendering  the 
Inquisition  an  instrument  for  executing  the  royal  will,  to  the 
subversion  of  the  jealously-guarded  principle  that  laymen  should 
be  wholly  excluded  from  spiritual  jurisdiction.^ 

*  Puigblanch,  La  Inquisicion  sin  Mascara,  pp.  412-15  (Cadiz,  1811). 
Puigblanch  says  that  he  possessed  a  copy  of  this  consulta  signed  by  Macanaz 
at  Montauban  in  1720.    So  far  as  I  am  aware  it  has  never  been  printed. 


318  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  GROWN  [Book  II 

In  the  reaction  wrought  by  Elisabeth  and  Alberoni,  Macanaz 
was  necessarily  sacrificed.  Philip,  notoriously  uxorious,  speedily 
fell  under  the  domination  of  his  strong-minded  bride  and 
Alberoni  became  the  all-powerful  minister.  Giudice,  who  had 
been  loitering  on  the  borders,  was  recalled  and,  on  March  28, 
1715,  Philip  abased  himself  by  signing  a  most  humiliating 
paper,  evidently  drawn  up  by  GiutUce,  reinstating  the  latter 
and  apologizing  for  his  acts  on  the  ground  of  having  been 
misled  by  evil  counsel.^  Alberoni  and  Giudice,  however,  were 
too  ambitious  and  too  unprincipled  to  remain  friends.  Their 
intrigues  clashed  in  Rome,  the  one  to  obtain  a  cardinal's  hat, 
the  other  to  advance  his  nephew.  Alberoni  had  the  ear  of  the 
queen  and  speedily  undermined  his  rival,  Giudice  was  also 
tutor  of  the  young  prince  Luis;  on  July  15,  1716,  he  was  deprived 
of  the  post  and  ordered  to  leave  the  palace  and,  on  the  25th,  he 
was  forbidden  to  enter  it.  He  fell  into  complete  disfavor  and 
shortly  left  Spain  for  Rome,  where  he  placed  the  imperial  arms 
over  his  door.  His  resignation  must  have  followed  speedily  for, 
on  January  23,  1717,  the  tribunal  of  Barcelona  acknowledges 
receipt  of  an  announcement  from  the  Suprema  that  the  pope 
has  at  last  acceded  to  the  reiterated  requests  of  Cardinal 
Giudice  to  be  allowed  to  resign  and  has  appointed  in  his  place 
D.  Joseph  de  Molines,  as  published  in  a  royal  decree  of  Janu- 
ary 9th.^  Alberoni  obtained  the  coveted  cardinalate  but  his 
triumph  was  transient.  He  replaced  the  king's  confessor, 
Father  Robinet  with  another  Jesuit,  Father  Daubenton,  who 
soon  intrigued  against  him  so  successfully  and  so  secretly  that 
the  first  intimation  of  his  fall  was  a  royal  order,  December  5, 
1719,  to  leave  Madrid  within  eight  days  and  Spain  in  three 
weeks.  He  vainly  sought  an  audience  of  Philip  and  was  forced 
to  obey.^ 

Although  the  episode  of  Giudice  is  thus  closed,  the  fate  of 
Macanaz  is  too  illustrative  of  inquisitorial  methods  and  of  royal 
weakness  to  be  passed  over  without  brief  mention.  He  had  in- 
curred the  undying  hatred  of  the  Inquisition  simply  in  discharge 


*  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  No.  210  fol. — I  have  printed  this 
document  in  "Chapters  from  the  Rehgious  History  of  Spain,"  p.  483. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisition,  Sala  39,  Leg.  4,  fol.  57. 

'  Alfonso  Professione,  II  Ministero  in  Spagna  del  Card.  Giulio  Alberoni,  p.  244 
(Torino,  1897). 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP  319 

of  his  duty  as  an  adviser  of  the  crown,  with  perhaps  an  excess 
of  zeal  for  his  master  and  an  intemperate  patriotism  that  strove 
to  restore  its  lost  glories  to  Spain.  It  was  impossible  to  continue 
him  in  his  high  function  while  recalling  Giudice  and,  as  a  decent 
cover  for  banishment,  he  was  allowed,  in  March,  1715,  to  seek 
the  waters  of  Bagneres  for  his  health,  when  he  departed  on  an 
exile  that  lasted  for  thirty-three  years  to  be  followed  by  an 
imprisonment  of  twelve.  Giudice  promptly  commenced  a  prose- 
cution for  heresy,  sufficient  proof  of  which,  according  to  the 
standards  of  the  Holy  Office,  was  afforded  by  his  official  papers. 
As  he  dared  not  return,  his  trial  in  absentia  resulted,  as  such 
trials  were  wont  to  do,  in  conviction,  and  he  seems  to  have  been 
sentenced  to  perpetual  exile  with  confiscation  of  all  his  property, 
including  even  five  hundred  doubloons  which  the  king  was  send- 
ing to  him  at  Pau  through  a  banker  of  Saragossa.  All  his  papers 
and  correspondence  in  the  hands  of  his  friends  were  seized  and 
his  brother,  a  Dominican  fraile,  whom  the  king  had  placed  in 
the  Suprema,  was  arrested  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  incriminating 
evidence.* 

Thenceforth  he  led  a  life  of  wandering  exile,  so  peculiar  that 
it  is  explicable  only  by  the  character  of  Philip.  He  was  in  con- 
stant correspondence  with  high  state  officials  and  was  frequently 
entrusted  with  important  negotiations.  Sometimes  he  was 
under  salary,  but  it  was  irregularly  paid  and  for  the  most  part 
he  had  to  struggle  with  poverty.  When  the  Infanta  Maria  Ana 
Vitoria  was  sent  back  to  Spain  from  France,  in  1725,  he  was 
commissioned  to  attend  her  to  the  border  and  from  there  he 
went  as  plenipotentiary  to  the  Congress  of  Cambray,  with  the 
comforting  assurance  that  the  king  was  endeavoring  to  put  an 
end  to  the  affair  of  the  Inquisition — an  effort  apparently  frus- 
trated by  the  influence  of  Pere  Daubenton.^  It  was  possibly 
with  a  view  to  overcome  this  fatal  enmity  that  he  occupied 
his  leisure,  between  1734  and  1736,  in  composing  a  defence  of  the 
Inquisition  from  the  attacks  of  Dr.  Dellon  and  the  Abbe  Du 
Bos.  In  this  he  had  nothing  but  praise  for  its  kindliness  towards 
its  prisoners,  its  scrupulous  care  to  avoid  injustice,  the  rectitude 
of  its  procedure  and  the  benignity  of  its  punishments.    Beyond 


*  Macanaz,  Regalias  de  los  Reyes  de  Aragon,  Introd.  pp.  xix-xxv  (Madrid, 
1879). 
'  Regalias  de  los  Reyes  de  Aragon,  Introd.  p.  xxviii. 


320  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

these  assertions,  the  defence  reduces  itself  to  showing  that,  from 
the  time  when  the  Church  acquired  the  power  to  persecute,  it 
has  persecuted  heretics  to  the  death  and  that  the  heretics  in 
their  turn  have  been  persecutors — propositions  readily  proved 
from  his  wide  and  various  stores  of  learning  and  sufficient  to  satisfy 
a  believer  in  the  semper  et  uhique  et  ah  omnibus}  Ten  years 
later,  when  Fernando  VI  ascended  the  throne  in  1746,  Macanaz 
addressed  him  a  memorial  on  the  measures  requisite  to  relieve 
the  misery  of  Spain  and  in  this  he  superfluously  urged  the 
maintenance  of  the  Inquisition  in  all  its  lustre  and  authority.^ 
In  spite  of  all  this  it  was  unrelenting  and  his  entreaties  to  be 
allowed  to  return  were  fruitless. 

In  1747  he  was  sent  to  the  Congress  of  Breda  where  he  mis- 
managed the  negotiations,  deceived,  it  is  said,  by  Lord  Sand- 
wich. Relieved  and  ordered,  in  1748,  to  present  himself  to  the 
Viceroy  of  Navarre  at  Pampeluna,  after  some  delay  he  was 
carried  to  Coruiia  and  immured  incomunicado  in  a  casemate 
of  the  castle  of  San  Antonio,  a  prison  known  as  a  place  of  rigorous 
confinement.  Even  the  authorities  there  compassionated  him 
and,  at  their  intercession,  he  was  removed  to  an  easier  prison 
and  permitted  the  use  of  books  and  writing  materials.  Here, 
during  a  further  captivity  of  twelve  years,  the  indomitable  old 
man  occupied  himself  with  voluminous  commentaries  on  the 
Teatro  critico  of  Padre  Feyjoo  and  the  Espana  sagrada  of  Florez, 
with  many  other  writings  and  memorials  to  the  king.  It  was 
not  until  the  death  of  the  latter,  in  1760,  that  Elisabeth  of  Parma, 
the  regent  and  the  cause  of  his  misfortunes,  liberated  him  with 
orders  to  proceed  directly  to  Murcia.  At  Leganes  he  was  greeted 
by  his  wife  and  daughter,  with  whom  he  went  to  Hellin,  his 
birth-place,  where  he  died  on  the  following  November  2d,  in  his 
ninety-first  year,^ 

There  is  no  record  of  any  further  exercise  of  royal  control  over 
inquisitors-general  until,  in  1761,  Clement  XIII  saw  fit  to  con- 
demn the  Catechism  of  Mesengui  for  its  alleged  Jansenism  in 
denying  the  authority  of  popes  over  kings.    The  debate  over  it 


*  Defensa  crftica  de  la  Inquisicion,  I,  7-10,  18,  23. 

The  work  was  not  printed  in  the  lifetime  of  Macanaz  but  was  issued  by  Valla- 
dares  in   1788. 

'  Valladares,  Semanario  enidito,  VIII,  221. 

»  Ibidem,  VII,  4,  127,  138;  VIII,  168.— Regalfas  de  los  Reyes  de  Aragon, 
Introd.  pp.  xliii-iv. 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP  321 

in  Rome  had  attracted  the  attention  of  all  Europe  and  the  pro- 
hibition of  the  book  was  regarded  as  a  general  challenge  to 
monarchs.  Carlos  III  had  watched  the  discussion  with  much 
interest,  especially  as  the  work  was  used  in  the  instruction  of  his 
son.  He  expressed  his  intention  of  not  permitting  the  publica- 
tion of  the  prohibition  but,  by  a  juggle  between  the  nuncio  and 
the  inquisitor-general,  Manuel  Quintano  Bonifaz,  an  edict  of 
condemnation  was  hastily  drawn  up  of  which  copies  were  given 
to  the  royal  confessor  on  the  night  of  August  7th.  They  did  not 
reach  the  king  at  San  Ildefonso  until  the  morning  of  the  8th, 
who  at  once  despatched  a  messenger  to  Bonifaz  ordering  him 
to  suspend  the  edict  and  recall  any  copies  that  might  have  been 
sent  out.  Bonifaz  replied  that  copies  had  already  been  delivered 
to  all  the  churches  in  Madrid  and  forwarded  to  nearly  all  the 
tribunals;  to  suppress  it  would  cause  great  scandal,  injurious  to 
the  Holy  Office,  wherefore  he  deeply  deplored  that  he  could  not 
have  the  pleasure  of  obeying  the  royal  mandate.  Carlos  was 
incensed  but  contented  himself  with  ordering  Bonifaz  to  absent 
himself  from  the  court;  he  obeyed  and,  in  about  three  weeks, 
made  an  humble  apology,  protesting  that  he  would  forfeit  his 
life  rather  than  fail  in  the  respect  due  to  the  king.  Carlos  then 
permitted  him  to  return  and  resume  his  functions  and,  when 
the  Suprema  expressed  its  gratitude,  he  significantly  warned  it 
to  remember  the  lesson.^  He  took  warning  himself  and,  on 
January  18,  1762,  he  issued  a  pragmatica  systematizing  the 
examination  of  all  papal  letters  before  issuing  the  royal  exequatur 
which  permitted  their  publication.^ 

Carlos  III  had  no  further  occasion  to  exercise  his  prerogatives 
but  it  was  otherwise  with  Carlos  IV.  His  first  appointee,  Manuel 
Abad  y  la  Sierra,  Bishop  of  Astorga,  who  assumed  office  May 

11,  1793,  had  but  a  short  term,  for  he  was  requested  to  resign  in 
the  following  year.  His  successor,  Francisco  Antonio  de  Loren- 
zana.  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  who  accepted  the  post  September 

12,  1794,  was  not  much  more  fortunate,  although  his  enforced 
resignation,  in  1797,  was  decently  concealed  under  a  mission 
to  convey  to  Pius  VI  the  offer  of  a  refuge  in  Majorca.  He  was 
followed  by  Ramon  Jose  de  Arce  y  Reynoso,  Archbishop  of 
Saragossa,  who  resigned  March  22,  1808,  foiu-  days  after  the 


*  Ferrer  del  Rio,  Historia  de  Carlos  III,  I,  384  sqq. 

*  Novfsima  Recop.  II,  iii,  9. 

21 


322  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

abdication  of  Carlos  IV  in  the  "tumult  of  lackeys"  at  Aranjuez, 
probably  to  escape  his  share  of  the  popular  odium  cUrected 
against  the  favorite  Godoy/  During  the  short-lived  revival  of 
the  Inquisition  under  the  Restoration,  its  dependence  on  the 
royal  power  was  too  great  for  differences  to  arise  that  would 
provoke  assertions  of  the  prerogative. 

The  relations  of  the  crown  with  the  Suprema  were  originally 
the  same  as  with  the  other  royal  councils.  The  king  appointed 
and  removed  at  will  although,  as  the  members  came  to  exercise 
judicial  functions,  it  was  necessary  for  the  inquisitor-general 
to  delegate  to  them  the  papal  faculties  which  alone  conferred  on 
them  jurisdiction  over  heresy.  Ferdinand  exercised  the  power 
of  appointment  and  removal  and,  as  his  orders  were  requisite 
for  the  receivers  of  confiscations  to  pay  their  salaries,  it  is  scarce 
likely  that  anyone  had  the  hardihood  to  raise  a  question.^  We 
have  seen  how  he  forced  the  members  to  accept  as  a  colleague 
Aguirre  though  he  was  a  layman,  how  Ximenes  when  governor 
of  Castile  removed  him  and  Adrian  reinstated  him.  The  earliest 
formula  of  commission  that  I  have  met  is  of  the  date  of  1546;  it 
bears  that  it  is  granted  by  the  inquisitor-general,  who  constitutes 
the  appointee  a  member  and  invests  him  with  the  necessary 
faculties,  and  it  is  moreover  countersigned  by  the  other  members.' 
In  this  there  is  no  allusion  to  any  nomination  by  the  king,  al- 
though the  appointment  lay  in  Ms  hands.  In  1573  the  Venitian 
envoy  Leonardo  Donato  so  states,  adding  that  the  popes  felt 
very  bitterly  the  fact  that  they  had  no  participation  in  it;  they 
had  repeatedly  tried  to  secure  the  membership  of  some  one 
dependent  upon  them,  such  as  the  nuncio,  but  Philip  would  not 
permit  it;  the  council  did  nothing  without  his  consent,  tacit  or 
expressed.^  At  some  period,  not  definitely  ascertainable,  the 
custom  arose  of  the  inquisitor-general  presenting  three  names 
from  among  which  the  king  made  selection.  At  first  the  number 
of  members  was  uncertain,  but  it  came  to  be  fixed  at  five,  in 
addition  to  the  inquisitor-general.  To  these  Philip  II  added 
two  from  the  Council  of  Castile ;  as  these  were  sometimes  laymen, 


'  Llorente,  Hist.  crft.  Cap.  xliv,  Art.  1,  n.  42,  43. — Modesto  de  Lafuente 
Historia  general  de  Espana,  XXII,  97,  125. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  I.ibro  9,  fol.  144,  192. 
3  Ibidem,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  153. 

*  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  Tom.  VI,  p.  370. 


Chap.  I]  THE  SUPBEMA  323 

he  finally  had  scruples  of  conscience  and,  in  his  instructions  to 
Manrique  de  Lara,  in  1595,  he  tells  him  that  when  there  are 
fitting  ecclesiastics  in  the  Council  of  Castile  they  are  to  be  pro- 
posed to  him  for  selection;  if  there  are  not,  it  is  to  be  considered 
whether  a  papal  brief  should  be  procured  to  enable  them  to  act 
in  matters  of  faith/  These  adventitious  members  came  to  be 
known  as  consejeros  de  la  tarde,  as  they  attended  only  twice  a 
week  and  in  the  afternoon  sessions  of  the  body,  where  its  secular 
business  was  disposed  of,  and  thus  they  took  no  share  in  matters 
of  faith.    Their  salary  was  one-third  that  of  the  others. 

The  royal  authority  was  emphatically  asserted  when,  in  1614, 
Phihp  III  ordered  that  a  supernumerary  place  should  be  made 
for  his  confessor  Fray  Aliaga,  with  precedence  over  his  colleagues 
and  a  salary  of  fifteen  hundred  ducats;  also  that  when  the  royal 
confessor  was  a  Dominican  he  should  always  have  this  place 
and,  when  he  was  not,  that  it  should  be  given  to  a  Dominican. 
The  Suprema  accepted  Aliaga  but  demurred  to  the  rest,  when 
Lerma  peremptorily  ordered  it  to  be  entered  on  the  records; 
there  were  murmurings  followed  by  submission.  After  the 
accession  of  Philip  IV,  he  ordered  the  Council  to  make  out  a 
commission  for  his  confessor,  the  Dominican  Sotomayor,  to 
which  there  was  ineffectual  opposition.^  The  rule  held  good. 
Soon  after  the  Inquisition  was  reorganized  under  the  Restora- 
tion, Fernando  VII,  July  10,  1815,  appointed  his  confessor, 
Cristobal  de  Bencomo,  a  member  to  serve  without  salary  for 
the  time  but  with  the  reversion  of  the  first  vacancy  and  all  the 
honors  due  to  his  predecessors;  he  had  the  seat  next  to  the  dean 
and  when  the  latter  died,  February  16,  1816,  he  took  his  position 
and  salary.^  Philip  V  ordered  that  a  seat  should  always  be 
occupied  by  a  Jesuit;  this  of  course  lapsed  with  the  expulsion  of 
the  Jesuits  in  1767,  after  which  Carlos  III,  in  1778,  provided 
that  the  Religious  Orders  should  have  a  representative  by 
turns.^ 

The  royal  power  of  appointment  was  not  uncontested  and 
gave  rise  to  frequent  debates.    Philip  IV  sometimes  yielded  and 

'  Archive  de  Alcald,  Estado,  Leg.  3137.— Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion, 
Libro  939,  fol.  271.— Pdramo,  p.  150. 

2  Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  183.— Cabrera,  Relaciones,  p. 
560. 

3  Archive  de  Simancas,  Registro  de  Genealogias,  916,  fol.  66. 

*  Discurso  sobre  el  Origen,  etc.,  de  la  Inquisicion,  p.  70  (Valladolid,  1803). 


324  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

sometimes  persisted;  occasionally  the  question  was  complicated 
and  papal  intervention  was  hinted  at.^  A  decisive  struggle  came 
in  1640,  in  which  the  Suprema  chose  its  ground  discreetly.  It 
suited  Olivares  to  appoint  Antonio  de  Aragon,  a  youthful  cleric 
and  the  second  son  of  the  Duke  of  Cardona.  Anticipating 
resistance,  Phihp  announced  the  nomination  imperiously;  Don 
Antonio  must  be  admitted  the  next  day  as  he  was  about  to  start 
for  Barcelona  and  any  representations  against  it  could  be  made 
subsequently.  The  Suprema  rephed  that  the  inquisitor-general 
coi^ld  not  make  the  appointment  and  if  he  did  so  it  would  be 
invalid;  Don  Antonio  was  less  than  thirty  years  old;  the  canons 
require  an  inquisitor  to  be  forty,  although  Paul  III  had  reduced, 
for  Spain,  the  age  to  thirty;  members  of  the  Suprema  were 
inquisitors  and  it  was  only  as  such  that  they  sat  in  judgement 
without  appeal  in  cases  of  faith.  To  this  Philip  rejoined  that 
Olivares  would  report  the  efforts  he  had  made  to  quiet  his  con- 
science in  view  of  the  great  public  good  to  result  from  the  ap- 
pointment, wherefore  he  expected  that  possession  would  be 
given  to  Don  Antonio  without  delay.  Matters  went  so  far  that 
the  Duchess  of  Cardona  wrote  to  her  son  to  abandon  the  effort 
but  the  royal  command  prevailed;  he  obtained  the  position  and 
in  the  following  year  he  was  made  a  member  of  the  Council  of 
State;  he  was  already  a  member  of  the  Council  of  MiUtary  Orders 
and  the  whole  affair  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  how  Olivares  governed 
Spain.^  Having  thus  asserted  his  prerogative,  Philip,  in  1642 
and  the  early  months  of  1643,  made  four  appointments  without 
consultation.  The  remonstrances  of  the  Suprema  must  have  been 
energetic  for  Philip  yielded  and,  in  a  decree  of  June  26  (or  July  2), 
1643,  he  agreed  that  the  old  custom  of  submitting  three  names 
should  be  renewed,  with  the  innovation  that  the  Suprema  should 
unite  in  making  the  recommendations.  Against  this  the  inquisi- 
tor-general protested,  but  in  vain.  It  was  probably  to  make 
an  offset  to  these  royal  nominees  that,  November  10,  1643,  the 
inquisitor-general  and  Suprema  asked  that  their  fiscal  should 

^  Archive  de  Alcald,  Estado,  Leg.  3137. — Archive  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y 
Justicia,  Leg.  621,  fol.  58-60.— Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  G,  61,  fol.  209-10; 
Pp,  28,  I  13. — MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130. — Archive  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,  Libro  21,  fol.  60. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  21,  fol.  256. — Bibl.  nacional,  ubi 
sup. — Archive  de  Alcald,  ubi  sup. — Parets,  Sucesos  de  Cataluna  (Memorial  hist. 
espaiiel,  XXI,  Append,  p.  398). — Cartas  de  Jesuitas  (Mem.  hist,  espan.  XVI,  81, 
205). 


Chap.  I]  THE  SUPREMA  325 

have  a  vote,  which  Phihp  refused,^  The  rule  continued  of  sub- 
mitting three  names  for  selection,  but  the  participation  of  the 
Suprema  in  this  seems  to  have  been  dropped.  The  royal  control, 
moreover  asserted  itself  in  the  case  of  Froilan  Diaz  when,  by- 
decree  of  November  3,  1704,  Philip  V  reinstated  three  members, 
Antonio  Zambrana,  Juan  Bautista  Arzeamendi  and  Juan 
Miguelez,  who  had  been  arbitrarily  ejected  and  jubilado  by 
Inquisitor-general  Mendoza,  ordering  moreover  that  they  should 
receive  all  arrears  of  salary.^ 

While  thus  the  crown  continued  to  exercise  the  right  of  select- 
ing the  heads  of  the  Inquisition,  its  practical  control  was  greatly 
weakened  by  one  or  two  changes  which  established  themselves. 
Of  these  perhaps  the  most  important  was  the  claim  of  the 
Suprema  to  interpose  itself  between  the  king  and  the  tribunals, 
so  that  no  royal  commands  to  them  should  be  obeyed  unless 
they  should  pass  through  it,  thus  rendering  the  inquisitors 
subject  to  itself  alone  and  not  to  the  sovereign.  In  a  government 
theoretically  absolute  this  was  substituting  bureaucracy  for 
autocracy  and,  when  the  example  was  followed,  though  at  a 
considerable  distance,  bj^  some  of  the  other  royal  councils,  it 
at  times  produced  deadlocks  which  threatened  to  paralyze  all 
governmental  action. 

We  have  seen  that,  towards  the  end  of  Ferdinand's  reign,  his 
letters  to  the  tribunals  were  sometimes  countersigned  by  mem- 
bers of  the  Suprema,  but  that  this  was  not  essential  to  their 
validity  and,  when  there  was  an  attempt  to  establish  such  a  claim, 
he  was  prompt  to  vindicate  his  authority.  A  royal  cedula  of 
October  25,  1512,  gave  certain  instructions  as  to  the  manumission 
of  baptized  children  of  slaves  whose  owners  had  suffered  con- 
fiscation. There  was  no  question  of  faith  involved,  but  when, 
in  1514,  Pedro  de  Trigueros  applied  to  the  inquisitors  of  Seville 
to  be  set  free  under  it,  they  refused  on  the  ground  that  it  had 
not  been  signed  by  the  Suprema,  He  appealed  to  Ferdinand 
who  promptly  ordered  the  inquisitors  to  obey  it;  if  they  find 
Pedro's  story  to  be  true  they  are  to  give  him  a  certificate  of 
freedom  and  meanwhile  are  to  protect  him  from  his  master,  who 


*  Archive  de  Alcald,  ^M  sup. — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  33, 
fol.  846;  Libro  35,  fol.  509.— MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ,  of  Halle,  Ye,  T.  17. 

*  Archivo  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Legajo  544^  (Libro  10). — Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion 
de  MSS.  G,  61,  fol.  22.— Proceso  criminal  contra  Fray  Froylan  Diaz,  p.  222. 


326  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

was  seeking  to  send  him  to  the  Canaries  for  sale/  The  claim  which 
Ferdinand  thus  peremptorily  rejected  was  persistently  main- 
tained during  the  period  of  confusion  which  followed  his  death. 
Whether  it  received  positive  assent  from  Charles  is  more  than 
doubtful,  although  the  Suprema  so  asserts  in  a  letter  of  July  27, 
1528,  ordering  inqmsitors  to  examine  whether  a  certain  royal 
cedula  had  been  signed  by  its  members,  for  the  kings  had  ordered 
that  none  should  be  executed  in  matters  connected  with  the 
Inquisition  unless  thus  authenticated — thus  basing  the  claim 
on  the  royal  will  and  not  on  any  inherent  right  of  the  Holy 
Office.^  So  complete  was  the  autonomy  thus  established  for 
the  organization  that  a  carta  acordada  or  circular  of  instructions. 
May  12,  1562,  tells  the  tribunals  that,  if  an  inquiry  from  the  king 
comes  to  them  through  any  other  council,  they  are  to  reply 
that  if  the  king  desires  the  information  it  will  be  furnished  to 
him  through  the  inquisitor-general  or  the  Suprema.^ 

The  far-reaching  importance  of  this  principle  can  scarce 
be  exaggerated.  One  of  its  results  will  be  seen  when  we  come 
to  consider  the  complaints  and  demands  of  the  Cortes  and  find 
that  fueros  directed  against  inquisitorial  aggressions  in  purely 
civil  matters,  when  agreed  to  by  the  king  were  invalid  without 
confirmation  by  the  inquisitor-general.  A  single  instance  here 
will  suffice  to  show  the  working  of  this.  In  1599  various  demands 
of  the  Cortes  of  Barcelona  were  conceded  by  Philip  III.  One 
regulated  the  number  of  familiars,  which  Philip  promised  that 
he  would  induce  the  inquisitor-general  to  put  into  effect,  within 
two  months  if  possible.  Another  provided  that  all  officials, 
save  inquisitors,  should  be  Catalans;  he  agreed  to  charge  the 
inquisitor-general  and  Suprema  to  observe  this  and  he  would 
get  it  confirmed  by  the  pope.  Another  was  that,  in  the  secular 
business  of  the  tribunal,  the  opinion  of  the  Catalan  assessor 
should  govern,  because  he  would  be  familiar  with  the  local  law; 
this  he  accepted  and  promised,  in  so  far  as  it  concerned  the 
inquisitor-general  and  Suprema,  to  charge  them  to  give  such 
orders  to  the  tribunal.  Another  was  that  commissioners  and 
familiars  should  not  be  "religious,"  to  which  his  reply  was  the 
same.  Another  required  the  inquisitor-general  to  appoint  a 
resident  of  Barcelona  to  hear  appeals  in  civil  cases  below  five 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  384. 
^  Ibidem,  Libro  939,  fol.   136. 
3  Ibidem,  Libro  978,  fol.  36. 


Chap.  I]  THE  SUPBEMA  327 

hundred  libras;  this  he  said  was  just  and  he  would  charge 
the  inquisitor-general  to  do  so.  After  this,  in  fulfilment  of  his 
plighted  word,  he  addressed  the  inquisitor-general  in  terms 
almost  supplicatory  "I  charge  you  greatly  that  for  your  part 
you  condescend  and  facilitate  that  what  they  have  supplicated 
may  be  put  in  execution,  in  conformity  with  what  I  have  con- 
ceded and  decreed  in  each  of  these  articles,  which  will  give  me 
particular  contentment."  Not  the  slightest  attention  was  paid 
to  this  request  and,  on  May  6,  1603,  PhiUp  repeated  it  "As  until 
now  it  is  understood  that  not  a  single  thing  contained  in  it  has 
been  put  in  execution  and,  as  I  desire  that  it  be  enforced,  I 
ask  and  charge  you  to  condescend  to  it  and  help  and  facihtate  it 
with  the  earnestness  that  I  confidently  look  for."^  This  second 
appeal  was  as  fruitless  as  the  first  and  the  Catalans  gained  noth- 
ing. It  is  true  that,  in  1632,  the  Barcelona  tribunal,  in  a  memo- 
rial to  Philip  IV,  asserted  that  Phihp  III  had  only  assented  to 
these  articles  to  get  rid  of  the  Catalans  and  that  he  wrote  privately 
to  the  pope  asking  him  not  to  confirm  them.^ 

This  case  may  have  been  mere  jugglery  and  collusion,  but  in 
general  it  by  no  means  followed  that  royal  decrees  sent  to  the 
Suprema  for  transmission  were  forwarded.  If  it  objected,  it 
would  respond  by  a  consulta  arguing  their  impropriety  or  ille- 
gality, and  this  would,  if  necessary,  be  repeated  three  or  four 
times  at  long  intervals  until,  perhaps,  the  matter  was  forgotten 
or  dropped  or  some  compromise  was  reached.  The  privilege 
that  all  instructions  must  be  transmitted  through  the  Suprema 
was  therefore  one  of  no  Httle  importance  and  it  was  insisted 
upon  tenaciously.  There  was  a  convenient  phrase  invented 
which  we  shall  often  meei—ohedecer  y  no  cumplir— to  obey 
but  not  to  execute,  which  was  very  serviceable  on  these  occasions. 
In  1610  the  Suprema  argued  away  a  cedula  of  PhiHp  III  as 
invalid  because  it  had  been  despatched  through  the  Council  of 
State  and  the  king  was  repeatedly  told  to  his  face  that  the  laws 
required  his  cedulas  to  be  countersigned  by  the  Suprema  in 
order  to  secure  their  execution.  This  was  done  to  Philip  IV, 
in  1634,  when  he  intervened  in  a  quarrel  and,  in  1681  to  Carlos  II 
when   there   were   difficulties   threatened   with   foreign   nations 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Libro  29,  fol.  59. 

It  is  observable  that  the  kings  always  addressed  the  Inquisition  "por  ruego  y 
encargo"  and  never  "por  mandamiento." 

2  Ibidem,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Legajo  17,  fol.  9. 


328  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  n 

arising  from  abuses  committed  in  examining  importations  in 
search  of  forbidden  books/  As  the  questions  caHing  for  royal 
interposition  as  a  rule  affected  only  the  wide  secular  and  not  the 
spiritual  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition,  this  created  conditions 
unendm-able  in  any  well-organized  government. 

Another  change  which  conduced  greatly  to  the  independence 
of  the  Inquisition  was  the  control  which  it  acquired  over  its 
finances.  We  have  seen  that,  under  Ferdinand,  the  confiscations 
and  pecuniary  penances  belonged  to  the  crown  and  that  the 
salaries  and  expenses  were  paid  by  his  orders.  The  finances  of 
the  Inquisition  will  be  discussed  hereafter  and  meanwhile  it 
suffices  to  say  that,  after  his  death  and  the  exuberant  liberality 
of  Charles  to  his  Flemish  favorites  during  his  first  residence  in 
Spain,  the  diminishing  receipts  from  these  sources  caused  them 
to  be  virtually  assigned  to  defraying  the  expenses  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion and  they  were  no  longer  regarded  as  a  source  of  supply  to 
the  royal  treasury.  Still,  the  money  belonged  to  the  crown  and 
the  Inquisition  enjoyed  it  only  under  the  authority  and  by 
virtue  of  the  bounty  of  the  sovereign. 

The  growth  of  control  over  income  and  of  virtual  financial 
independence  was  gradual  and  irregular.  Even  Ferdinand, 
in  his  watchful  care  over  his  receivers  of  confiscations,  felt  the 
need  of  some  central  auditor  and  it  seemed  natural  that  he 
should  be  an  official  of  the  Suprema.  Accordingly  as  early  as 
1509  we  find  a"contador  general"  in  that  position.  In  1517  there 
are  two  officers,  a  contador  and  a  receiver-general  and,  in  1520, 
the  two  are  merged  into  one.^  When,  in  1513,  Bishop  Mercader 
was  made  inquisitor-general  of  Aragon  he  desired  a  statement 
from  all  receivers  of  their  receipts  and  payments  and  of  the 
property  remaining  in  their  hands  and  Ferdinand  ordered  them 
to  comply,  alluding  to  it  as  usual  on  the  entrance  of  a  new  inquis- 
itor-general.^ This  inevitably  ripened  into  the  transfer  to  that 
official  of  the  control  over  receivers  which  Ferdinand  had  exer- 
cised, so  that  in  place  of  being  royal  officials  they  became  virtually 
officers  of  the  Inquisition  and  eventually  were  designated  as 
treasurers.    By  1544  we  find  the  Suprema  to  be  the  final  court 


»  Archive  de  Simancas,  Libro  20,  fol.  340;  Libro  26,  fol.  37;  Libre  43,  fol.  297. 

»  Ibidem,  Libro  3,  fol.  24,  397;  Libro  5,  fol.  8,  16,  21. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  3,  fel.  248,  250,  252. 


Chap.  I]  FINANCIAL  INDEPENDENCE 


329 


of  revision  of  all   the  receivers  of   the  local   tribunals,   whose 
accounts  were  rendered  to  it  and  audited  by  it.* 

Still,  in  theory  the  money  belonged  to  the  crown  and  its  dis- 
bursement could  only  be  made  under  royal  authority.  The 
order  for  the  payment  of  the  ayuda  de  costa  of  the  Suprema, 
July  21,  1517,  was  drawn  in  the  name  of  la  reyna  y  el  re?/— Juana 
and  Charles.^  After  Charles  reached  Spain,  in  September  of  that 
year,  he  made  grants  from  the  confiscations  with  a  profusion 
that  threatened  to  bankrupt  the  Inquisition,  and  if  we  find 
Adrian  and  the  Suprema  also  occasionally  issuing  orders  for 
payments  it  was  undoubtedly  under  powers  granted  by  Charles.^ 
When  Charles  left  Spain,  May  20,  1520,  he  gave  Adrian  a  general 
faculty  for  this  purpose,  but  it  seems  to  have  been  called  in 
question,  for  he  found  it  necessary  to  send  from  Brussels,  Sep- 
tember 12th,  a  cedula  to  all  receivers  confirming  it  and  stating 
that  Adrian's  orders,  signed  by  members  of  the  Suprema,  would 
be  received  as  vouchers  by  the  auditor-general.  Under  this 
the  Suprema  exercised  full  authority  over  the  funds  collected 
by  all  the  receivers  and  disposed  of  them  at  its  pleasure.  When 
Charles  returned  he  presumably  resumed  control  and,  after  his 
marriage  with  Isabel  of  Portugal,  during  his  frequent  absences, 
he  left  the  power  in  her  hands  until  her  death  May  1,  1539.^ 
When  he  saw  fit,  moreover,  he  claimed  and  received  a  share 
of  the  spoils.  A  letter  of  Cardinal  Manrique,  June  17,  1537, 
shows  that  a  portion  of  the  proceeds  of  a  certain  auto  de  fe  had 
been  paid  to  him  and  another  of  October  11th,  of  the  same 
year,  addressed  to  him  at  the  Cortes  of  Monzon,  reinforces  an 
appeal  not  to  sacrifice  the  interests  of  the  Inquisition  to  the 
Aragonese  demands,  with  the  welcome  news  that  the  receiver 
of  Cuenca  had  arrived  with  the  ten  thousand  ducats  for  which 
he  had  asked  from  the  confiscations  of  that  tribunal.^ 

Charles's  hasty  departure  in  November,  1539,  to  quell  the  in- 
surrection of  Ghent  left  matters  in  some  confusion.  The  Suprema, 
on  March  20,  1540,  wrote  to  Chancellor  Granvelle  that  cedulas 
for  the  salaries,  under  the  crown  of  Aragon,  were  always  signed 
by  the  emperor  and  that  the  inquisitor-general  could  not  do  it; 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  76,  fol.  227;  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  139. 

'  Ibidem,  Lib.  5,  fol.  16. 

5  Ibidem,  Lib.  940,  fol.  34. 

*  Ibidem,  Lib.  5,  fol.  29;  Lib.  73,  fol.  106,  107,  301;  Lib.  940,  fol.  35,  36,  40,  41. 

»  Ibidem,  Lib  78,  fol.  162. 


330  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

they  had  sent  him  a  power  for  execution  similar  to  that  given 
to  Cardinal  Adrian  but  he  had  refused  to  sign  it,  saying  that 
they  could  do  as  under  Cardinal  Manrique,  forgetting  that  there 
had  been  the  empress  who  always  signed  the  cedulas,  wherefore 
they  ask  him  to  get  the  emperor  to  sign  the  power.  He  doubtless 
did  so,  for  an  order,  June  12th,  on  the  receiver  of  Valencia  to 
send  fifteen  hundred  ducats  for  the  salaries  of  the  Suprema 
purports  to  be  by  virtue  of  a  special  power  granted  by  their 
majesties.  On  Charles's  return  he  again  assumed  control  and 
when  he  went  to  Italy,  in  1543,  he  left  Phihp  as  regent,  while 
during  the  absence  of  Philip  there  were  successive  regents  who 
signed  cedulas  as  called  for  by  the  Suprema.^ 

Yet,  in  spite  of  these  formalities,  the  control  of  the  crown  was 
becoming  scarcely  more  than  nominal.  It  is  true  that,  in  1537, 
Cardinal  Manrique  declared  that  he  could  not  increase  salaries 
without  the  royal  assent  but,  when  the  crown  undertook  any 
exercise  of  power,  the  little  respect  paid  to  its  commands  is  seen 
in  the  fate  of  an  application  made  in  1544,  by  Juan  Tomas  de 
Prado,  notary  of  the  tribunal  of  Saragossa,  to  Prince  Philip  for 
an  ayuda  de  costa  of  three  hundred  ducats.  Philip  ordered  his 
prayer  to  be  granted,  but  the  death  of  Inquisitor-general  Tavera 
served  as  a  convenient  pretext  for  disregarding  the  command. 
It  was  repeated,  for  the  same  amount,  January  11,  1548,  and 
finally,  on  June  4th,  Inquisitor-general  Valdes  authorized  the 
payment  of  a  hundred  ducats.^ 

To  perfect  the  absolute  control  of  the  confiscations,  thus 
gradually  assumed,  it  was  necessary  to  keep  the  crown  in  igno- 
rance of  their  amount.  Its  right  to  them  was  incontestable,  and 
the  Inquisition  deliberately  abused  the  confidence  reposed  in 
it  when  their  collection  was  left  in  its  hands.  The  less  the  king 
was  allowed  to  know,  the  less  likely  he  was  to  claim  his  share 
and  the  policy  was  adopted  of  deceiving  him.  As  early  as  1560 
we  have  evidence  of  this  in  a  letter  to  the  inquisitors  of  Sicily 
instructing  them,  when  reporting  autos  de  fe  to  the  king,  to 
suppress  all  statements  as  to  the  confiscations,  but  to  report 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  107,  110;  Lib.  939, 
fol.  134;  Lib.  940,  fol.  41,  42. 

A  pragmatica  of  1534,  abandoning  the  royal  claim  on  the  confiscations  under 
the  crown  of  Aragon,  can  only  have  been  of  temporary  effect. — Ibidem,  Lib.  939, 
fol.  9. 

»  Ibidem,  Lib.  939,  fol.  134;  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  164. 


Chap.  I]  FINANCIAL  INDEPENDENCE  331 

them  to  the  Suprema  so  that  it  may  determine  how  far  to  inform 
him.  This  was  doubtless  a  general  mandate  to  all  the  tribunals; 
it  was  repeated  in  instructions  of  1561  and  we  shall  see  that  it 
became  a  settled  practice.^  This  systematic  concealment  was 
the  more  indefensible  from  the  fact  that  the  Inquisition  was 
now  obtaining  funds  from  other  sources  than  confiscations.  We 
shall  see  hereafter  how  it  utilized  the  scare  caused  by  the  dis- 
covery of  Protestantism  in  Valladolid  and  Seville  in  1558,  with 
the  plea  of  additional  expenses  thus  caused,  to  obtain  from  Paul 
IV  a  levy  of  a  hundred  thousand  gold  ducats  on  the  revenues 
of  the  clergy  and  the  more  permanent  endowment  of  a  canonry 
to  be  suppressed  for  its  benefit  in  every  cathedral  and  collegiate 
church.  A  large  portion  of  the  inquisitors,  moreover  already 
held  canonries  and  other  benefices  for  which,  under  a  brief  of 
Innocent  VIII,  February  11,  1485,  they  were  dispensed  for 
non-residence.^  The  burden  of  the  Holy  Office  was  thus  thrown 
largely  on  the  ecclesiastical  estabhshment,  which  remonstrated 
and  resisted  but  was  compelled  to  submit.  It  could  thus  look 
wdth  equanimity  on  the  shrinkage  of  the  confiscations.  In 
Valencia,  an  agreement  was  reached,  in  1571,  by  which  the 
Moriscos  compounded  for  them  with  an  annual  payment  to  the 
tribunal  of  twenty-five  hundred  ducats.'  The  Judaizing  heretics 
had  been  largely  eliminated,  especially  the  more  wealthy  ones, 
and  it  was  not  until  some  years  after  the  conquest  of  Portugal, 
in  1580,  that  the  influx  of  Portuguese  New  Christians  brought  a 
new  and  profitable  harvest. 

All  this  tended  to  the  financial  independence  of  the  Inquisition 
although  the  crown  by  no  means  abandoned  its  claim  on  the 
confiscations.  A  book  of  receipts  given  by  the  royal  representa- 
tive in  Valencia  for  the  proceeds  of  the  confiscations  in  1593 
shows  that,  under  the  financial  pressure  of  the  time,  Philip  II 
was  reasserting  his  rights."  The  treasury  was  empty  when 
PhiUp  III  succeeded  to  the  throne  in  1598  and,  among  his 
expedients  to  raise  money,  he  ordered  the  receivers  of  the  tri- 
bunals to  send  to  him  all  the  funds  in  their  hands,  promising 
speedy  repayment.     The  Suprema  had  no  faith  in  the  royal 


»  Archive  de  Simancas,  Lib.  80,  fol.  2,  p.  2;  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  252. 
»  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I  de  copias,  fol.  201,  203.— Bibl. 
nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.  R,  90.— Pdramo,  p.  138. 

»  Danvila  y  Collado,  Expulsion  de  los  Moriscos,  pp.  184-6  (Madrid,  1889). 
♦  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  384. 


332  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

word  and  instructed  the  tribunals  to  retain  enough  to  meet  their 
own  wants.  The  obedience  of  the  tribunals  was  by  no  means 
prompt  and  the  Suprema  was  obliged  to  order  Valencia  to  comply 
w^ith  the  royal  demand  and  to  furnish  an  oath  that  no  money 
was  left.^ 

In  the  earlier  years  of  Philip  IV  the  tendency  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion to  emancipate  itself  from  royal  control  grew  rapidly.  We 
shall  see  hereafter  that  when,  in  1629,  the  king  called  for  a  state- 
ment of  salaries  and  perquisites  the  Suprema  equivocated  and 
suppressed  nearly  all  the  information  required.  Still  more 
significant  was  its  attitude  respecting  the  colonial  tribunals, 
which  the  king  supported  under  an  annual  expencUture  of  thirty 
thousand  pesos,  with  the  understanding  that  this  should  cease 
when  the  confiscations  should  become  sufficient.  These,  which 
had  been  small  at  first,  rapidly  increased  in  the  seventeenth 
century  and  were  enormous  between  1630  and  1650,  when  the 
whole  trading  communities  of  Peru  and  Mexico  were  shattered, 
enabling  the  tribunals  to  make  permanent  investments  that 
rendered  them  wealthy,  besides  sending  heavy  remittances  to 
the  Suprema,  which  moreover  seized  the  goods  and  credits  in 
Seville  of  the  colonial  Judaizers.  In  addition  to  this,  in  1627, 
a  prebend  in  each  cathedral  was  suppressed  for  the  benefit  of 
the  tribunals.  Yet  the  salaries  were  still  demanded  of  the  royal 
treasury  and  the  repeated  efforts  of  Philip  III  and  Philip  I^^, 
from  1610  to  1650,  to  obtain  statements  of  the  receipts  from 
confiscations  and  pecuniary  penances  were  completely  baffled. 
That  was  an  inviolable  secret  which  no  royal  official  was  allowed 
to  penetrate.  It  is  true  that  the  colonial  tribunals,  on  their  side, 
adopted  the  same  policy  in  concealing,  as  far  as  they  could,  from 
the  Suprema  the  extent  of  their  own  gains.^ 

Yet,  in  the  ever-increasing  distress  of  the  crown,  demands 
were  made  upon  the  Inquisition,  as  on  all  other  departments  of 
government,  demands  which  it  was  forced  to  meet.  Thus,  for 
the  ten  years,  1632  to  1641  inclusive,  an  annual  sum  of  2,007,360 
mrs.  was  required  of  it,  to  aid  in  defraying  the  cost  of  garrisons 
and  fleet,  and  a  statement  of  October  11,  1642,  shows  that  it  had 
paid  the  aggregate  of  11,583,110  in  vellon  and  18,700  in  silver, 

•  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  5,  n.  2,  fol.  168,  169,  172. 

*  Recop.  de  las  Indias,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  xix,  leyes  10,  11,  12,  30,  I  1.— Solorzani  de 
Indiar.  Gubern.  Lib.  HI,  cap.  xxiv,  n.  11. — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion, 
Leg.  1465,  fol,  78;  Libro  40,  fol.  44,  57,  74,  77,  85,  91,  103,  128,  139. 


Chap.  I]  DEMANDS  OF  THE  CROWN  333 

leaving  a  balance  still  due  of  8,474,790.^     Evidently  there  was 
good  reason  for  concealing  its  revenues.     In  the  frightful  con- 
fusion of  the  finances  which  followed  the  revolution  of  Portugal 
and  the  revolt  of  Catalonia,  in  1640,  while  Spain  was  heroically 
battling  for  existence  against  France  and  its  rebellious  subjects, 
the  demands  were  varied  and  incessant — sometimes  for  sums 
so  small  as  to  reveal  the  absolute  penury  of  the  State — and 
Philip's  impatient  urgency,  as  he  chafed  under  the  dilatoriness 
of  the  responses,  shows  the  desperate  emergencies  in  which  he 
was  involved.    In  1643  a  royal  decree  of  February  16th  ordered 
all  officials  to  send  their  silver  plate  to  the  mint,  a  watch  being 
kept  and  a  report  made  so  as  to  see  that  each  sent  a  quantity 
proportioned  to  his  station.     To  a  complaint  of  delay  in  per- 
formance the  Suprema  replied  that  those  who  had  sent  in  their 
silver  could  get  no  satisfaction  from  the  mint — the  delays  were 
such  that  the  promptitude  required  by  the  king  was  impossible.^ 
Even  more  arbitrary  was  the  seizure,  in  1644  at  Seville,  of  a 
remittance  of  8676  ducats  in  silver,  a  remittance  from  the  colo- 
nial  tribunals  to  the  Suprema.     In  protesting  against  this  the 
Suprema,  February  29th,  gave  a  deplorable  account  of  its  con- 
dition, owing  to  the  demands  made  upon  it  by  the  king.     On 
the  10th  he  had  called  upon  it  for  16,000  ducats  which  it  would 
be  wholly  unable  to  raise  if  deprived  of  the  silver  that  had  been 
seized.      It  was  already  short  in  7,724,843  mrs.  of  its  annual 
expenses  and  the  provincial  tribunals  were  short  5,318,000,  for 
it  had  impoverished   them  to  meet  the  royal  demands.     Last 
year  it  had  sold  a  censo  of  18,000  ducats  belonging  to  the  tri- 
bunal of  Saragossa,  which  was  beseeching  its  return.     It  had 
also  given  the  king  10,000  ducats  for  the  cavalry  and  to  raise 
this  amount  it  had  taken  the  sequestrations  in  the  tribunal  of 
Seville— a  sacred  deposit— including   20,000   ducats'   worth   of 
wool,  the  owners  of  which,  having  been  acquitted,  were  besieging 
it  for  their  money.     This  dolorous  plaint  was  effective  in  so  far 
that  the  seizure  at  Seville  was  credited  on  account  of  the  de- 
mand for   16,000  ducats."     How  much  of  it  was  true  we  can 
onlv   guess,   for   the   Inquisition    had  means  of  raising  money 
outside  of  its  judicial  functions.     When,  in  1640,  the  king  sum- 


y 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Libro  35,  fol.  456. 
»  Ibidem,  fol.  281;  Libro  21,  fol.  224,  251. 
3  Ibidem,  Libro  40,  fol.  218,  328;  Libro  36,  fol.  74. 


334  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

moned  its  familiars  and  officials  to  render  military  service  like 
the  nobles,  the  Suprema  arranged  that  they  should  buy  them- 
selves off,  and  from  this  source  was  chiefly  raised  40,000  ducats 
expended  on  two  companies  of  horse,  in  return  for  which,  by  a 
cedula  of  September  2,  1641,  the  king  promised  to  maintain 
inviolate  the  privileges  and  exemptions  of  the  familiars  and 
officials.^ 

These  instances,  out  of  many,  will  suffice  to  show  how  the 
crown,  in  its  days  of  distress,  was  recouping  itself  for  abandoning 
the  spoils  of  the  heretics.  In  time  these  special  and  arbitrary 
demands  were  systematized  into  an  annual  requirement  of  fifty 
horses,  estimated  at  an  outlay  of  about  5500  ducats  and  the 
raising  and  equipping  of  two  hundred  foot,  costing  8000 
ducats.  The  Suprema  was  in  no  wise  prompt  in  meeting  these 
demands;  a  cedula  of  June  24,  1662,  tells  it  that  what  is  due 
for  the  present  year  as  well  as  the  previous  arrears,  must  be 
paid  at  once,  otherwise  an  inventory  of  its  property  must  be 
given  to  the  president  of  the  treasury,  who  will  raise  the  money 
on  it.^  Subsequently  there  was  a  feeble  attempt  to  return  some 
of  these  contributions  and,  in  each  of  the  years  1673  and  1674, 
a  trifling  payment  was  made  of  10,000  reales  vellon,  but,  in 
1676,  the  Suprema  stated  to  Carlos  II  that  in  all  it  had  fur- 
nished for  remounts  of  horses  90,000  ducats  vellon  and  10,000 
in  silver  and  that  its  total  assistance  to  the  crown  had  amounted 
to  no  less  than  800,000  pesos,  equivalent  to  over  500,000  ducats, 
to  accomplish  which  the  salaries  in  many  tribunals  had  been 
unpaid  and  vacancies  of  necessary  offices  had  remained  unfilled.^ 
Still,  as  we  shall  have  occasion  to  see,  the  Suprema  always  had 
money,  not  only  for  an  undiminished  pay-roll  but  for  perquisites 
and  amusements. 

The  crown  could  not  accept  this  assistance,  however  grudg- 
ingly rendered,  without  a  sacrifice  of  its  supremacy  and  the 
Inquisition  came  to  treat  with  it  as  with  an  independent  body. 
About  this  time  the  Suprema  happens  to  mention,  in  a  letter 
to  the  tribunal  of  Lima,  that  it  had  lent  the  king  40,000  pesos, 
of  which  10,000  came  from  Peru  and  30,000  from  Mexico  and 
that  the  Count  of  Medellin  had  become  security  for  the  return 
of  the  loan,   as  though  it  were  a  banker  dealing  with  a  mer- 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  23,  fol.  63. 

'  Ibidem,  Libro  38,  fol.  281,  303,  398;  Legajo  1465,  fol.  36-8,  50. 

'  Ibidem,  Libro  40,  fol.  85,  139. 


Chap.  I]  CLAIM  ON  THE  CONFISCATIONS  335 

chant.^  Yet  all  parties  knew  that  these  colonial  remittances 
were  derived  from  confiscations,  the  ownership  of  which  the 
crown  had  never  relinquished.  This  is  the  more  noteworthy 
because,  about  this  time,  the  king  suddenly  asserted  his  claims 
on  some  large  sums  which  could  not  be  wholly  concealed. 
In  1678  the  tribunal  of  Majorca  unexpectedly  made  a  successful 
raid  on  the  whole  New  Christian  population  of  Palma  and,  in 
the  early  months  of  1679,  there  were  more  than  two  hundred 
penitents  reconciled.  As  they  constituted  the  active  trading 
element  of  the  place  the  confiscations  were  enormous  and  the 
affair  attracted  too  much  attention  to  be  hidden.  As  soon  as  the 
news  came  of  the  arrests,  the  king  wrote,  May  20,  1678,  to  the 
viceroy  to  look  carefully  to  the  sequestrations  because,  in  case 
of  confiscation,  the  proceeds  belonged  to  the  treasury.  The 
Suprema,  however,  made  him  hold  his  hands  off  with  direful 
threats  and  kept  control  of  the  liquidation.  After  the  con- 
demnations, a  consulta  of  July  5,  1679,  shows  that  50,000  pesos 
had  already  been  paid  to  the  king,  but  that  the  Inquisition  was 
resolved  to  have  its  full  share.  In  November  the  king  acceded 
to  a  compromise  under  which  200,000  pesos  were  to  be  used  to 
endow  certain  tribunals  and  to  cancel  certain  loans  made  to  him 
by  the  Inquisition — probably  those  just  alluded  to.  The  balance 
coming  to  him  was  estimated  at  250,000  pesos  but,  in  the 
handling  of  the  assets  and  the  settlements  with  creditors,  the 
property  melted  away  till  the  Suprema  reported  that  it  barely 
sufficed  to  meet  the  portion  assigned  to  the  Inquisition  and 
finally,  in  1683,  the  king  had  to  content  himself  with  18,000 
pesos  spent  on  the  fortifications  of  Majorca  and  the  payment  to 
him  of  2000,  which  the  Suprema  assured  him  that  it  advanced 
at  considerable  risk  to  itself.^ 

The  secretiveness  so  carefully  observed  undoubtedly  had  its 
advantages  or  it  would  not  have  been  so  persistently  claimed 
as  a  right.  In  a  consulta  of  1696  the  Count  of  Frigiliana  states 
that,  when  he  was  viceroy  of  Valencia,  he  had  in  vain  endeavored 
to  get  from  the  tribunal  a  statement  of  its  affairs  and  he  asked 
the  king  whether  or  not  the  Inquisition  possessed  the  privilege 
of  rendering  no  account  of  its  assets  and  income.^  At  length 
the  quarrel  between  Inquisitor-general  Mendoza  and  his  colleagues, 

>  MSS.  of  Bibl.  nacional  of  Lima,  Legajo  225,  Expediente  5278. 
»  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  69,  fol.  2,  69,  156,  563. 
'  Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS     Q,  4. 


336  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

in  the  case  of  Froilan  Diaz,  and  his  banishment  to  his  see  in  1703, 
gave  opportunity  for  royal  intervention  and  investigation.  The 
War  of  Succession  had  deranged  the  finances  of  the  Inquisition 
and  it  had  appealed  to  the  king  for  help.  He  required  a  state- 
ment of  the  pay-rolls,  investments  and  revenues  of  all  the  tri- 
bunals, which  was  furnished  March  9,  1703,  after  which,  on  May 
27th,  he  issued  a  decree  declaring  that  he  must  put  an  end  to  the 
abuses  and  disorders  which  had  crept  into  the  administration 
and  disbursement  of  its  property,  in  order  to  reheve  the  embar- 
rassment of  which  it  complained.  He  therefore  annulled  all 
commissions  and  appointments  without  obligation  of  service, 
granted  by  the  inquisitor-general,  whether  within  or  outside  of 
Spain.  The  papers  of  all  jubilations,  new  places  and  gratuities 
created  or  granted  since  the  time  of  Valladares  (1695)  were  to 
be  placed  in  his  hands.  In  no  case  thereafter  should  the  inquisi- 
tor-general jubilate  any  official  of  the  Suprema  or  local  tribunal 
without  consulting  him,  and  any  such  act  issued  without  a 
previous  royal  order  was  declared  void.  No  ayuda  de  costa  or 
grant  exceeding  thirty  ducats  vellon,  for  a  single  term,  was  to  be 
made  without  awaiting  his  decision  and  this  decree  was  to  be 
placed  in  the  hands  of  all  receivers  or  treasurers  for  their  guid- 
ance. It  was  so  transmitted  June  8th,  with  strict  orders  for 
its  observance.  This  was  a  resolute  assertion  of  the  royal  control 
over  the  finances  of  the  Inquisition  and  it  held  good,  in  theory 
at  least,  however  much  it  may  have  been  eluded  in  practice. 
About  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  a  systematic  writer 
describes  it  as  still  in  force  and  states  that  no  salaries  can  be 
increased  without  the  royal  approval.  It  so  continued  to  the 
end  and,  under  the  Restoration,  an  order  from  the  king,  counter- 
signed by  the  Suprema,  was  requisite  for  any  extraordinary 
disbursement.^ 

Philip  also  reasserted  and  made  good  the  right  of  the  crown  to 
the  confiscations,  by  claiming  a  percentage  of  the  rentals  of  all 
confiscated  property,  but  he  listened  to  appeals  from  the  tri- 
bunals and,  in  1710,  we  hear  of  Saragossa  and  Valencia  being 
practically  restored  to  their  enjoyment,  a  liberality  which 
was   doubtless  followed  with  regard  to   the   others.     In   1725 


*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  10,  n.  2,  fol.  157. — 
Archive  de  Alcala,  Estado,  Leg.  2843. — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicien, 
Libre  559. 

Jubilation,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  consisted  in  retirement  on  half-pay. 


Chap.  I]  FINES  AND  PENANCES 


337 


Valencia  expressed  its  fear  that  the  alUance  with  Austria  against 
England,  France  and  Prussia  would  result  in  its  having  to  restore 
the  confiscations,  and  the  blow  seems  to  have  fallen  for,  in  1727, 
the  suprema,  in  a  consulta  of  December  9th,  describing  the 
poverty  of  Saragossa,  attributes  it  to  the  king  having  taken 
away  the  confiscations  which  he  had  granted.  With  the  gradual 
amelioration  in  the  Spanish  finances,  this  source  of  revenue 
must  have  been  restored,  for,  in  1768,  the  Inquisition  is  de- 
scribed as  enjoying  the  confiscations  which  the  pious  hberaUty 
of  the  monarchs  had  bestowed/ 

There  were  other  sources  of  revenue — rehabilitations  or  dis- 
pensations from  the  sanbenito  and  disabilities,  commutations 
of  punishment  and  the  pecuniary  penances  known  as  penas  y 
penitencias.  All  these  will  be  considered  hereafter,  but  a  few 
words  may  be  said  as  to  the  latter  in  their  relation  with  the  royal 
authority. 

The  penitents  who  were  reconciled  under  Edicts  of  Grace 
were  not  subject  to  confiscation,  but  were  punished  with  fines 
under  the  guise  of  pecuniary  penance,  at  the  discretion  of  the 
inquisitor.  We  have  seen  (pp.  169-70)  how  numerous  these 
were  and  we  can  conjecture  how  large  were  the  sums  thus  exacted, 
for  penances  of  a  half  or  a  third  of  the  penitent's  property  were 
not  uncommon.  Similar  fines  also  usually  accompanied  sen- 
tences that  did  not  embrace  confiscation  and  formed  a  continual 
although  fluctuating  source  of  revenue.  Sometimes  there  were 
special  officials  for  their  collection  but,  when  this  was  entrusted 
to  the  receivers  of  confiscations,  they  were  instructed  to  keep  a 
separate  account  of  them,  as  the  two  funds  were  held  to  be 
essentially  different  and,  as  a  rule,  were  to  be  employed  for 
different  purposes. 

In  the  earliest  Instructions  of  1484,  these  pecuniary  penances 
are  said  to  be  imposed  as  a  limosna,  or  alms,  to  aid  the  sovereigns 
in  the  pious  work  of  warring  with  the  Moors,  but,  in  the  Instruc- 
tions issued  a  few  months  later  by  Torquemada,  this  is  modi- 
fied by  ordering  them  to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  trustworthy 
person  and  reports  to  be  made  to  him  or  to  the  king,  in  order 
that  they  may  be  spent  on  the  war  or  in  other  pious  uses  or  in 

*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  13,  n.  2,  fol.  6,  13,  17; 

Leg.  14,  n.  1,  fol.  42. — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  27,   fol.  87; 

Libro  28,  fol.  275. 

22 


338  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

paying  the  salaries  of  the  Inquisition.^  Both  the  destination 
and  the  control  of  these  funds  were  thus  left  undetermined  and 
they  so  continued  for  some  years.  In  1486  we  find  Ferdinand 
giving  orders  for  sums  from  this  source  for  various  uses — for  the 
war  with  Granada,  to  pay  the  salaries  of  a  lay  judge,  to  pay 
expenses  of  a  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition,  to  repay  Luis  de  Sant- 
angel  for  advances  made  to  tribunals;  in  one  case  his  tone  is 
apologetic  and  he  asks  Torquemada  to  confirm  the  order,  in 
others  his  command  is  absolute.^ 

This  indicates  the  uncertainty  which  existed  both  as  to  the 
use  and  the  control  of  the  pecuniary  penances.  So  long  as  lasted 
the  war  with  Granada,  whatever  was  taken  by  the  crown  might 
be  regarded  as  devoted,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  that  holy  object, 
but  when  the  conquest  was  achieved,  in  January,  1492,  that 
excuse  no  longer  existed  and  doubtless  the  inquisitors  looked 
with  jealousy  upon  the  diversion  to  secular  objects  of  the  proceeds 
of  their  pious  labors.  The  confiscations  unquestionably  be- 
longed to  the  crown,  but  the  penances  were  spiritual  funds  which 
for  centuries  had  always  enured  to  the  Church.  There  must 
have  been  a  sustained  effort  to  withhold  them  from  the  royal 
acquisitiveness,  to  which  FercUnand  was  not  disposed  to  yield, 
for  he  procured  from  Alexander  VI,  February  18,  1495,  a  brief 
directing  the  inquisitors  to  hold  all  such  moneys  subject  to 
the  control  of  the  sovereigns,  to  be  disposed  of  at  their  pleasure. 
Even  this  was  resisted  and  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  complained 
to  the  pope  that  they  were  unable  to  compel  an  accounting  of 
the  sums  received  or  to  collect  the  amounts,  to  correct  Avhich 
Alexander  issued  another  brief,  March  26,  1495,  commissioning 
Ximenes,  then  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  to  enforce  accounting 
and  payment  by  excommunication  and  other  censures.^ 

This  was  equally  ineffective.  There  was  a  privacy  and  sim- 
plicity in  the  imposition  and  collection  of  a  penance  very  differ- 
ent from  the  procedure  of  sequestration  and  confiscation,  and 
Ferdinand,  at  least  for  a  time,  abandoned  the  struggle.  This 
is  manifested  by  a  clause  in  the  Instructions  of  1498,  enjoining 
on  inquisitors  not  to  impose  penances  more  heavily  than  justice 


*  Instruciones  de  1484,  §§  3,  7  (Arguello,  fol.  3,  4). — Archive  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,  Lib.  933.     (See  Appendix.) 

2  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  A.,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  83,  89,  102. 
»  Boletin,  XV,  594,  596. 


Chap   I]  FINES  AND  PENANCES  339 

requires  in  order  to  insure  the  payment  of  their  salaries/  and 
the  principle  was  formally  recognized  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
in  a  cedula  of  Januar}^  12,  1499,  reciting  that,  although  they  held 
a  papal  brief  placing  at  their  disposal  all  moneys  arising  from 
penances,  commutations  and  rehabilitations,  yet  they  grant  to 
the  inquisitors-general  all  collections  from  these  sources,  both 
in  Castile  and  Aragon,  to  be  used  in  paying  salaries,  disburse- 
ments being  made  only  on  their  order.^ 

Ferdinand,  however,  was  not  disposed  to  relax,  on  any  point, 
his  control  over  the  Inquisition  and,  on  April  10th  of  the  same 
year,  we  find  him  forbidding  the  levying  of  penances  on  the 
members  of  a  town-council  for  fautorship  of  heresy — doubtless 
a  speculative  infliction  for  some  assumed  neglect  in  arresting 
suspects.  In  1501  his  renunciation  is  already  forgotten  and 
he  is  making  grants  from  the  penances  as  absolutely  as  ever — 
even  empowering  Inquisitor-general  Deza  to  use  those  of  Valen- 
cia, to  the  extent  of  a  hundred  ducats  a  year  for  the  salary  of 
Jaime  de  Muchildos,  the  Roman  agent  of  the  Inquisition.^  So, 
in  1511,  we  find  him  granting  to  Enguera,  Inquisitor-general 
of  Aragon,  a  thousand  libras  out  of  the  penances  to  defray  the 
expenses  of  his  bulls  for  the  see  of  Lerida  and  authorizing  him 
to  pay  from  them  an  ayuda  de  costa  of  two  hundred  ducats  to 
Joan  de  Gualbes,  a  member  of  the  Aragonese  Suprema.  Then, 
in  1514,  he  places  all  the  penances  unreservedly  at  the  disposal 
of  Inquisitor-general  Mercader  to  be  employed  on  the  salaries 
and  other  necessary  expenses  of  the  Inquisition  of  Aragon.  This 
seems  to  have  been  final.  After  his  death,  instructions  sent  to 
the  tribunal  of  Sicily  assume  that  the  inquisitor-general  has 
sole  and  absolute  control.  It  was  the  same  in  Castile.  Instruc- 
tions issued  by  Ximenes,  in  1516,  direct  the  receiver-general, 
who  was  an  officer  of  the  Suprema,  to  collect  the  penances  from 
the  receivers  of  the  tribunals,  who  were  to  keep  them  in  a  sepa- 
rate account  and  not  to  disburse  them  without  an  order  from 
the  inquisitor-general.  After  this  we  find  the  Suprema  in  full 
control.'* 

There  is  virtually  no  trace  of  any  interference  subsequently 

'  Instruciones  de  1498,  ?  5.     (Arguello,  fol.  12.) 
^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  1;  Libro  933. 
^  Ibidem,  Libro  1;  Libro  2,  fol.  9. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  135,  137,  169,  270;  Libro  933, 
fol.  125;  Libro  72,  P.  1,  fol.  72;  P.  2,  fol.  20.     (Arguello,  fol.  20,  25.) 


340  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

by  the  crown,  and  the  Inquisition  found  itself  in  possession  of 
an  independent  and  by  no  means  inconsiderable  source  of 
revenue  which  it  could  levy,  almost  at  will,  from  those  who  fell 
into  its  hands.  The  only  exception  to  this  that  I  have  met  is 
that  Philip  IV,  in  his  financial  distress,  by  a  decree  of  September 
30,  1639,  claimed  and  collected  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  fines, 
but  he  scrupulously  limited  this  to  those  inflicted  in  cases  not 
connected  with  the  faith — that  is,  in  the  exercise  of  the  royal 
jurisdiction,  civil  and  criminal,  enjoyed  by  the  Inquisition  in 
matters  concerning  familiars  and  other  officials.^ 

Though,  as  we  have  seen,  the  independence  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, as  a  self-centered  and  self-sustaining  institution  in  the 
State,  varied  with  the  temper  and  the  necessities  of  the  sovereign, 
there  was  a  time  when  it  seemed  as  though  it  might  throw  off 
all  subjection  and  become  dominant.  But  for  the  prudence  of 
Ferdinand,  in  insisting  upon  the  power  of  appointment  and 
dismissal,  this  might  have  happened  in  the  temper  of  the  Span- 
ish people,  trained  to  an  exaltation  of  detestation  of  heresy 
which  to  us  may  well  appear  incomprehensible.  There  is  no 
question  that,  under  the  canon  law,  kings,  like  their  subjects, 
were  amenable  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition  and  that 
they  held  their  kingdoms  on  the  tenure  not  only  of  their  own 
orthodoxy  but  of  purging  their  lands  of  heresy  and  heretics. 
The  principles  which  had  been  worked  so  effectually  for  the 
destruction  of  the  Houses  of  Toulouse  and  of  Hohenstaufen 
and  under  which  Pius  V  released  the  subjects  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth from  their  allegiance,  in  1570,  were  fully  recognized  in 
Spain  as  vital  to  the  faith.^  But  beyond  this  the  Spaniards,  in 
the  exuberance  of  their  religious  ardor,  boasted  that  their 
national  institutions  conditioned  orthodoxy  as  necessary  to 
their  kingship.  Even  when  the  seventeenth  century  was  well 
advanced,  a  learned  and  loyal  jurisconsult  tells  us  that,  from 
the  time  of  the  sixth  Council  of  Toledo,  in  638,  their  monarchs 
had  imposed  on  themselves  the  law  that,  if  they  fell  into  heresy, 
they  were  to  be  excommunicated  and  exterminated:  that  Ferdi- 
nand, in  1492,  had  renewed  this  law  and  that  he  had  instituted 
that  most  severe  tribunal  the  Inquisition  and  had  sanctioned 

1  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  21Sb,  p.  236. 

'  Simancse  de  Cathol.  Institt.  Tit.  xxiii. — Cf.  R.  Bellarmini  de  Potestate  Papae 
cap.  3. 


Chap.  I]  IRRESPONSIBILITY  34I 

that,  in  view  of  the  Toledan  canon,  all  kings  in  future  should  be 
subject  to  it/  Even  Spanish  loyalty  could  not  have  been  relied 
upon  to  sustain  a  king  suspect  of  heresy,  against  the  claims  of 
the  Holy  Office  to  try  him  in  secret,  and  suspicion  of  heresy 
was  a  very  elastic  term.  Impeding  the  Inquisition  came  within 
its  definition  and  any  effort  to  curb  the  arrogant  extension  of 
its  powers  could  readily  be  so  construed,  as  Macanaz  found  to 
his  sorrow.  The  fact  that  the  Inquisition  possessed  such  power 
must  have  had  its  influence  more  than  once  on  the  mind  of  the 
sovereign  when  engaged  in  debate  with  his  too  powerful  subject 
and  perhaps  explains  what  appears  to  us  occasionally  a  pusil- 
lanimous yielding. 

The  monarchs  had  guarded  the  Inquisition  against  all  super- 
vision and  all  accountability  to  the  other  departments  of  govern- 
ment. Within  its  own  sphere  it  was  supreme  and  irresponsible 
and  its  sphere,  owing  to  the  exemption  from  the  secular  courts 
accorded  to  all  connected  with  it  in  however  remote  a  degree, 
covered  a  large  area  of  civil  and  criminal  business,  besides  its 
proper  function  of  preserving  the  purity  of  the  faith.  In  this 
self-centered  independence  it  stood  alone.  Even  the  spiritual 
jurisdiction  of  the  Church,  so  jealously  guarded,  had  become 
subject  to  the  recur  so  de  juerza,  which,  like  the  French  a'p'pel 
conime  d'abus,  gave  to  those  who  suffered  wrong  an  appeal  to 
the  Council  of  Castile.^  But  even  from  this  the  Inquisition  was 
exempt.  A  decree  of  Prince  Philip,  in  1553,  was  its  segis  and  was 
constantly  invoked.  This  was  addressed  to  all  the  courts  and 
judicial  officers  of  the  land  and  affirmed,  in  the  most  positive 
terms,  the  sole  and  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition  in  all 
matters  within  its  competence,  civil  or  criminal,  concerning  the 
faith  or  confiscations — and  faith  was  a  convenient  term  cover- 
ing the  impeding  of  the  Inquisition  in  all  that  it  wanted  to  do. 
Philip  recited  that  repeated  cedulas  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
and  of  Charles  V  had  asserted  this  and  now  he  reaffirmed  and 
enforced  it.    No  appeals  from  its  tribunals  were  to  be  entertained, 

^  Solorzani  de  Jure  Indiarum,  Tom.  I,  Lib.  iii,  cap.  i,  n.  92. — In  this  Solorzano 
exaggerates  cap.  3  of  the  Sixth  Council  of  Toledo  (Aguirre,  III,  409). 

All  this  is  seriously  brought  forward  by  Antonio  de  Ayala,  fiscal  of  Valencia, 
in  an  argument  to  prove  the  exemption  from  taxation  of  the  Inquisition. — Arch, 
hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  no.  1,  fol.  11. 

2  Cortes  de  Madrigal,  1476  (Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  IV,  74,  80).— 
Nueva  Recop.  Lib.  11,  Tit.  v,  leyes  36-39. — Salgado  de  Somoza,  De  Regia  Pro- 
tectione,  P.  i,  cap.  1,  2. 


342  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

for  the  only  appeal  lay  to  the  Suprema,  which  would  redress 
any  wrong,  for  it,  by  delegation  from  the  crown  and  the  Holy 
See,  had  exclusive  cognizance  of  such  matters.  If  therefore 
anything  concerning  the  Inquisition  should  be  brought  before 
them  they  must  decline  to  entertain  it  and  must  refer  it  back  to 
the  Holy  Office/ 

The  Inquisition  was  not  content  to  enjoy  these  favors  as  a 
revocable  grace  from  the  crown  but,  in  a  consulta  of  December 
22,  1634,  it  advanced  the  claim  that  this  decree  was  a  bargain 
or  compact  between  two  powers  which  could  not  be  in  any  way 
modified  without  mutual  consent.^  This  was  emphasized  in  a 
printed  argument  in  1642,  asserting  that  that  transaction  could 
only  become  of  binding  force  by  the  consent  of  both  parties 
— the  king  and  the  inquisitor-general — and  the  king  had  no 
power  to  change  it  of  his  own  motion,  as  it  was  an  agreement. 
Even  were  it  admitted  to  be  a  concession  granted  by  the  crown, 
this  would  make  no  difference,  for  a  privilege  conceded  to  one 
who  is  not  a  subject  (as  the  Inquisition  in  the  present  case) 
and  accepted  by  the  latter  becomes  a  contract  which  the  prince 
cannot  revoke.^ 

We  shall  see  hereafter  the  use  made  of  this  by  the  Inquisition 
in  its  daily  quarrels  with  all  the  other  jurisdictions,  but  a  single 
case  may  be  cited  here  to  indicate  how  it  utilized  this  position 
to  render  itself  virtually  independent.  There  was  a  long-stand- 
ing debate  over  canonries  in  the  churches  of  Antequera,  Malaga 
and  the  Canaries,  which  it  claimed  to  be  suppressed  for  its 
benefit  under  the  brief  of  January  7,  1559,  but  which  the  royal 
Camara  asserted  to  belong  to  the  patronage  of  the  king,  whose 
rights  of  appointment  were  not  curtailed  by  the  brief.  A  suit 
on  the  subject,  commenced  in  1562,  was  not  yet  decided  when, 
about  1611,  the  king  filled  vacancies  in  Malaga  and  the  Canaries. 
This  provoked  a  discussion,  during  which,  without  awaiting 
settlement,  the  inquisitors  excommunicated  the  appointees — 
and  an  inquisitorial  excommunication   could  be  removed  only 


^  This  cedula  is  not  included  in  the  Recopilaciones,  but  is  printed  by  Salgado 
de  Somoza,  De  Retentione  Bullarvim,  P.  ii,  cap.  xxxiii,  n.  13,  and  by  Portocarrero, 
op.  cit.,  ?  74.  There  are  also  copies  in  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Cc,  .'18,  fol.  5;  Archivo 
de  Simancas,  Lib.  30,  fol.  146;  Lib.  939,  fol.  300,  and  in  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ. 
of  Halle,  Yc,  Tom.  17. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Libro  20,  fol.  340. 

»  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130. 


Chap.  I]  EFFORTS  AT  INDEPENDENCE  343 

by  him  who  had  fulminated  it,  by  the  inquisitor-general  or  by 
the  pope.  In  1611  the  king  ordered  the  appointees  to  be  absolved 
and  mandates  signed  by  him  to  that  effect  were  addressed  to  the 
inquisitors  of  Malaga  and  the  Canaries.  The  Suprema  com- 
plained loudly  of  this  as  an  unheard  of  violation  of  the  rights 
of  the  Holy  Office  and  refused  obedience.  In  1612  it  declared 
that,  when  the  appointees  abandoned  the  prebends  which  they 
had  usurped,  they  should  be  absolved  and  not  before.  On  Febru- 
ary 12th,  in  a  consulta  to  the  king,  it  argued  that  its  power  had 
always  been  so  great  and  so  independent  of  all  other  bodies 
in  the  State  that  the  kings  had  never  allowed  them  to  interfere 
with  it,  directly  or  indirectly ;  it  determined  for  itself  everything 
relating  to  itself,  consulting  only  with  the  king  and  permitting 
no  interference  of  any  kind.  Its  determination  prevailed  over 
the  weakness  of  the  king  who  ordered  the  Camara  to  desist 
from  its  pretensions  and  not  to  despoil  the  Holy  Office.^ 

These  somewhat  audacious  assertions  of  independence  were 
chiefly  stinmlated  by  the  perpetual  quarrels  arising  from  the 
exclusive  jurisdiction,  civil  and  criminal,  exercised  by  the  Inqui- 
sition over  its  thousands  of  employees  and  familiars  and  their 
families,  which  kept  the  land  in  confusion.  This  is  a  subject 
which  will  require  detailed  consideration  hereafter  and  is  only 
referred  to  here  because  of  its  development  into  the  exaggerated 
pretensions  of  the  Inquisition  to  emancipate  itsef  from  all  con- 
trol. When  Ferdinand  granted  this  juero  it  was  understood 
on  all  hands  to  be  a  special  deputation  of  the  royal  jurisdiction 
and  as  such  Hable  at  any  time  to  modification  or  revocation. 
Ferdinand  himself,  in  a  cedula  of  August  18,  1501,  alluded  to  it 
as  such— the  inquisitors  enjoyed  it  just  as  the  corregidors  did.' 
So,  in  the  Concordia  of  Castile,  in  1553,  defining  the  extent  of 
this  jurisdiction,  the  inquisitors  are  specially  described  as  hold- 
ing it  from  the  king,  and  Phihp  II,  Philip  III  and  Philip  IV 
repeatedly  alluded  to  it  as  held  during  the  royal  pleasure." 
There  was  no  thought  of  disputing  this  until  the  seventeenth 
century  was  well  advanced.  The  Suprema  itself,  in  papers  of 
1609,   1619,   1637  and  1639  freely  admitted  that  its  temporal 

>  Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  X,  157,  fol.  244. 

*  Archive  de  Simaucas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  13,  fol.  16.-Llorente,  Afiales,  I, 

277 

'  Nueva  Recop.  Libro  iv,  Tit.  1,  ley  18.— Consulta  magna,  1696  (Bibl.  nacional, 

Seccion  de  MSS.,  Q,  4). 


344  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

jurisdiction  was  a  grant  from  the  king,  while  its  spiritual  was  a 
grant  from  the  pope/ 

Apparently  the  earliest  departure  from  this  universally  con- 
ceded position  was  made,  in  1623,  by  Portocarrero  in  an  argu- 
ment on  a  clash  of  jurisdictions  in  Majorca,  wherein  he  sought 
to  prove  that  the  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition 
over  its  subordinates  was  ecclesiastical  and  derived  from  the 
pope.^  About  the  same  time,  in  an  official  paper,  a  similar 
claim  was  advanced,  based  on  the  papal  briefs  authorizing 
Torquemada  and  his  successors  to  appoint,  dismiss  and  punish 
their  subordinates.^  These  were  mere  speculations  and  attracted 
no  attention  at  the  time.  We  have  just  seen  that  as  late  as 
1639  the  Suprema  made  no  claims  of  the  kind  but  two  years 
later,  in  1641,  it  suddenly  adopted  them  in  the  most  offensive 
fashion.  There  was  a  competencia,  or  conflict  of  jurisdiction, 
between  the  tribunal  of  Valladolid  and  the  chancilleria  or  high 
royal  court ;  the  Council  of  Castile  had  occasion  to  present  several 
consultas  to  the  king,  in  one  of  which  it  said  that  the  jurisdiction 
exercised  in  the  name  of  the  king  by  the  Inquisition  was  temporal, 
secular  and  precarious  and  could  not  be  defended  by  excom- 
munication. Thereupon  the  Suprema  assembled  its  theologians 
who  pronounced  these  propositions  to  be  false,  rash  and  akin 
to  heretical  error;  armed  with  this  opinion  the  fiscal,  or  prose- 
cuting officer,  accused  the  whole  Council  of  Castile,  demanded 
that  its  consulta  be  suppressed  and  that  its  authors  be  prose- 
cuted. Theoretically  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  such  action, 
which  would  have  rendered  the  Inquisition  the  dominating 
power  in  the  land,  but  the  Suprema  lacked  hardihood;  even  the 
habitual  subservience  of  Philip  IV  was  revolted  and  he  told  the 
inquisitor-general  that  he  had  done  ill  to  lend  himself  to  a  ques- 
tion contrary  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  monarch  and  to  the  honor 
of  the  highest  council  of  the  nation.* 

In  spite  of  this  rebuff,  having  once  asserted  the  claim  that 
its  temporal  jurisdiction  was  spiritual  and  not  secular,  the 
Inquisition  adhered  to  it.  The  prize  was  worth  a  struggle,  for 
it  would  have  put  the  whole  nation  at  its  mercy.    It  would  have 

»  Archive  de  Simancas,  Libro  927,  fol.  323;  Libre  21,  fol.  84,  110;  Libro  50, 
fol.  82.— Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  X,  157,  fol.  244. 
'  Portocarrero,  Sob  re  la  Competencia,  etc.,  §  52. 
'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  940,  fol.  196. 
*  Llorente,  Hist.  crit.  Cap.  xxvi.  Art.  ii,  n.  20-4. 


Chap.  I]  EFFORTS  AT  INDEPENDENCE  345 

deprived  the  king  of  powers  to  check  aggression  and  to  protect 
his  subjects  from  oppression  for,  as  Portocarrero  had  pointed 
out,  although  princes  have  authority  to  reUeve  their  subjects 
when  aggrieved  by  other  secular  subjects,  they  have  none  when 
the  oppressors  are  ecclesiastics,  exempt  by  divine  law  from  their 
jurisdiction.^  To  win  this  the  Inquisition  persisted  in  its  claim. 
In  1642,  on  the  occasion  of  a  competencia  in  Granada,  there 
appeared,  under  its  authority,  a  printed  argument  to  prove 
that  the  temporal  jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  Office  was  a  grant 
from  the  Holy  See,  which  had  power  to  intervene  in  the  internal 
affairs  of  States  and  that  it  had  merely  been  acquiesced  in  and 
confirmed  by  the  kings.^  Again,  in  a  notorious  case  occurring 
in  Cuenca  in  1645,  the  inquisitors  argued  that  their  temporal 
jurisdiction  was  ecclesiastical  and  papal,  with  which  the  king 
could  not  interfere.^  But  the  audacity  with  which  these  preten- 
sions were  pushed  culminated  in  a  consulta  presented  by  the 
Suprema,  March  31,  1646,  to  Philip  IV,  when  he  was  struggling 
against  the  determination  of  the  Cortes  of  Aragon  to  curb  the 
excesses  of  the  Inquisition. 

In  this  paper  the  Suprema  asserted  that  the  civil  and  political 
jurisdiction  is  inferior  to  the  spiritual  and  ecclesiastical,  which 
can  assume  by  indirect  power  whatever  is  necessary  for  its 
conservation  and  unimpeded  exercise,  without  being  restricted 
by  secular  princes.  The  royal  prerogative  is  derived  from  posi- 
tive human  law  or  the  law  of  nations;  the  supreme  power  of  the 
Inquisition  is  delegated  by  the  Holy  See  for  cases  of  faith  with 
all  that  is  requisite,  directly  or  indirectly,  for  its  untrammelled 
enjoyment;  this  is  of  divine  law  and,  as  such,  is  superior  to 
all  human  law,  to  which  it  is  in  no  way  subject.  The  very  least 
that  can  be  said  is  that  princes  are  bound  to  admit  this,  and 
though  they  have  a  right  to  concede  no  more  than  is  requisite, 
the  decision  as  to  what  is  requisite  rests  with  the  ecclesiastical 
authority,  which  is  based  on  divine  law.  Any  departure  from 
these  principles,  under  the  novel  pretext  that  the  king  is  master 
of  this  jurisdiction,  with  power  to  Hmit  or  abrogate,  is  dangerous 
for  the  conscience  and  very  perilous  as  leading  to  the  gravest 


^  Portocarrero,  op.  cit.,  ?  73. 

*  Per  la  Jurisdiction   de  la  Inquisicion  de  la  Ciudad   y  Reyno  de  Granada, 
Granada,  1642  (MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S.,  130). 
3  Bibl.'  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  151. 


346  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

errors.^  It  would  be  difficult  to  enunciate  more  boldly  the 
theory  of  theocracy,  with  the  Inquisition  as  its  delegate  and 
the  crown  merely  the  executor  of  its  decrees. 

These  pretensions  were  not  realized  and  the  king  was  not 
reduced  to  insignificance,  but  his  power  was  seriously  trammelled 
by  the  bureaucracy  of  which  the  Suprema  was  the  foremost  and 
most  aggressive  representative.  Its  quasi-independence  led  to 
emulation  by  the  other  great  departments  of  the  State  and, 
though  their  success  was  not  so  marked,  it  was  sufficient  in  all 
to  render  the  government  incredibly  cumbersome  and  inefficient 
and  to  paralyze  its  action  by  wasting  its  strength  in  efforts  to 
keep  the  peace  between  the  rival  and  warring  bodies.  In  these 
bickerings  and  dissensions  the  power  of  the  crown  decreased 
and  the  theoretically  autocratic  monarch  found  himself  unable 
to  enforce  his  commands.  Philip  IV  recognized  this  fatal  weak- 
ness, but  his  efforts  to  overcome  the  evil  were  puerile  and 
inefficient.  October  15,  1633,  he  sent  to  the  Suprema,  and  pre- 
sumably to  the  other  councils,  a  decree  setting  forth  emphatically 
that  the  slackness  of  obedience  and  disregard  of  the  royal  com- 
mands had  been  the  cause  of  irreparable  damage  to  the  State 
and  must  be  checked  if  the  monarchy  were  to  be  preserved 
from  ruin.  It  was  his  duty,  under  God,  to  prevent  this;  he  had 
unavailingly  represented  it  repeatedly  to  his  councillors  and 
now  he  proposed  to  make  out  a  schedule  of  penalties,  to  be 
incurred  through  disobedience,  scaled  according  to  the  gravity 
of  each  offence.  This  was  to  be  completed  within  twenty  days 
and  he  called  upon  the  Suprema  to  give  him  the  necessary  infor- 
mation that  should  enable  him  to  tabulate  the  matters  coming 
within  its  sphere  of  action. 

This  grotesque  measure,  calHng  upon  offenders  to  define  their 
offences  for  the  purpose  of  providing  condign  punishment,  was 
received  by  the  Suprema  with  a  cool  indifference  showing  how 
Ughtly  it  regarded  the  royal  indignation.  There  was  nothing, 
it  said  in  reply,  within  its  jurisdiction  which  imperilled  the 
monarchy,  for  its  function  was  to  preserve  the  monarchy  by 
preserving  the  unity  of  religion.  As  for  obedience,  it  was  of 
the  highest   importance    that    the  royal    commands  should   be 

^  Archive  gen.  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Legajo  528. — For  some  extracts  from 
this  paper  see  Appendix. 

Various  papers  on  both  sides  of  these  questions  will  be  found  in  the  Simancas 
archives,  Libro  62,  fol.  160,  312. 


Chap.  I]  EFFORTS  AT  INDEPENDENCE 


347 


obeyed  and  the  laws  provided  punishments  for  all  disobedient 
vassals.  But  the  canon  and  imperial  laws  and  those  of  Spain 
deprived  of  their  places  judges,  who  executed  royal  cedulas 
issued  against  justice  and  the  rights  of  parties,  for  it  was  assumed 
that  such  could  not  be  the  royal  intention  and  that  they  were 
decreed  in  ignorance,  so  that  they  were  suspended  until  the 
prince,  better  informed,  should  provide  justice.  Therefore  when 
councillors  opposed  cedulas  which  would  work  great  injury  to 
the  jurisdiction  and  immunities  of  the  Holy  Office,  it  was  only 
to  prevent  innovation  and  it  was  in  the  discharge  of  duty  that 
this  was  represented  to  the  king.  The  Suprema  therefore  prayed 
him  that,  before  determining  matters  proposed  by  other  councils, 
they  should  be  submitted  to  it  as  heretofore  so  that,  after  hearing 
the  reasons  of  both  sides,  he  might  determine  according  to  his 
pleasure.^  Thus  with  scarcely  veiled  contempt  the  Suprema 
told  him  that  it  would  continue  to  do  as  it  had  done  and  the 
very  next  year,  as  we  have  seen,  it  boldly  informed  him  that 
none  of  his  commands  respecting  the  Inquisition  would  be  obeyed 
until  it  should  have  confirmed  them — commands,  be  it  remem- 
bered, that  in  no  case  affected  its  action  in  matters  of  faith,  for 
all  the  trouble  arose  from  its  encroachments  on  secular  affairs. 

The  character  of  Philip  IV  ripened  and  strengthened  under 
adversity  and,  in  the  exigencies  of  the  struggle  with  Catalonia 
and  Portugal,  he  developed  some  traits  worthy  of  a  sovereign. 
Although  he  meekly  endured  the  insolence  of  the  Suprema 
in  1646  and  labored  strenuously  with  the  Cortes  of  Aragon  to 
prevent  the  reform  of  abuses,  he  yet,  as  we  have  seen,  insisted 
on  the  right  to  supervise  appointments.  He  doubtless  asserted 
his  authority  in  other  ways  for  the  Suprema  abated  its  preten- 
sions that  its  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction  was  spiritual  and 
papal.  In  an  elaborate  consulta  of  March  12,  1668,  during  a 
long  and  dreary  contest,  in  which  the  tribunal  of  Majorca  was 
involved,  it  repeatedly  refers  to  its  enjo3dng  the  royal  jurisdic- 
tion from  the  king,  showing  that  it  had  abandoned  the  attempt 
to  render  itself  independent  of  the  royal  authority.^ 

Under  the  imbecile  Carlos  II  and  his  incapable  ministers,  the 
domineering  arrogance  of  the  Inquisition  increased  and,  as  we 
shall  see  hereafter,  it  successfully  eluded  a  concerted  movement, 


*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  32,  fol.  56,  58.      (See  Appendix.) 

*  Ibidem,  Libro  25,  fol.  58. 


348  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

in  1696,  of  all  the  other  councils,  represented  in  the  Junta 
Magna,  to  reduce  its  exuberance.  With  the  advent  of  the  House 
of  Bourbon,  however,  it  was  forced  to  recognize  its  subordination 
to  the  royal  will  in  temporal  matters,  in  spite  of  the  temporary 
interference  of  Elisabeth  Farnese  in  favor  of  Inquisitor-general 
Giudice.  We  have  already  seen  indications  of  this  and  shall 
see  more;  meanwhile  a  single  instance  will  suffice  to  show  how 
imperiously  Philip  V,  under  the  guidance  of  Macanaz,  could 
impose  his  commands.  In  1712  there  was  an  echo  of  the  old 
quarrel  over  the  so-called  suppressed  canonries  of  Antequera, 
Malaga  and  the  Canaries  (p.  342).  The  suit,  commenced  in  1562, 
had  never  been  decided  and  had  long  been  suspended.  The 
trouble  of  1612  had  been  quieted  by  allowing  the  Inquisition 
to  enjoy  the  canonries,  not  as  a  right,  but  as  a  revocable  grant 
from  the  crown;  excesses  committed  by  the  inquisitors  in  col- 
lecting the  fruits  led  to  the  resumption  of  the  benefices  and 
then,  by  a  transaction  in  1622,  they  were  restored  under  the 
same  conditions.  Such  was  the  position  when  a  violent  quarrel 
arose  in  the  Canaries  between  the  tribunal  and  the  chapter. 
The  former  questioned  the  accuracy  of  the  accounts  rendered 
to  it  and  demanded  the  account  books.  This  the  chapter  refused 
but  offered  to  place  the  books  in  the  accounting  room  of  the 
cathedral,  allowing  the  officials  of  the  tribunal  free  access  and 
permission  to  make  what  copies  they  desired.  There  was  also 
a  subsidiary  quarrel  over  the  claim  that,  when  the  secretary  of 
the  tribunal  went  to  the  chapter,  he  should  be  entitled  to  prece- 
dence. With  their  customary  violence  the  inquisitors  publicly 
excommunicated  and  fined  the  dean  and  treasurer  of  the  chapter 
and  moreover  they  took  under  their  protection  the  Dominican 
Joseph  Guillen,  Prior  of  San  Pedro  Martir,  who  was  a  notary 
of  the  tribunal.  He  circulated  a  defamatory  libel  on  the  chapter 
which  laid  a  complaint  before  his  superior,  the  Provincial;  the 
latter  commenced  to  investigate,  when  the  tribunal  inhibited  him 
from  all  cognizance  of  the  matter.  Then  there  came  a  mandate 
from  the  Dominican  General  to  the  Provincial,  relegating  Fray 
Guillen  to  a  convent  and  ordering  a  president  to  be  appointed 
for  San  Pedro  Martir,  whereupon  the  tribunal  required  the 
Provincial  to  surrender  this  mandate  and  all  papers  concerning 
the  affair,  under  pain  of  excommunication  and  two  hundred 
ducats.  The  sub-prior  of  San  Pedro  Martir  was  forced  to  assem- 
ble the  brethren,  whom  the  inquisitors  ordered  to  disobey  the 


Chap.  I]  REASSEBTION  OF  ROYAL  SUPREMACY  349 

commands  of  the  General  and  not  to  acknowledge  the  president 
appointed  under  his  instructions,  thus  violating  the  statutes 
of  the  great  Dominican  Order  and  the  principle  of  obedience  on 
which  it  was  based.  They  further  excommunicated  the  Provincial 
in  the  most  solemn  manner;  they  took  by  force  Fray  Guillen 
from  the  convent  and  paraded  the  streets  in  his  company;  the 
whole  community  was  thrown  into  confusion  and  to  prevent 
recourse  to  the  home  authorities  they  forbade,  under  heavy 
penalties,  the  departure  of  any  vessel  for  TenerifFe,  through 
which  communication  was  had  with  Spain.  In  all  this  there 
was  nothing  at  variance  with  the  customary  methods  of  asserting 
the  lawless  supremacy  of  the  Inquisition  over  the  secular  and 
spiritual  authorities,  but  Phihp  V  ordered  Giudice,  September 
30,  1712,  to  put  an  end  to  these  excesses  and,  on  October  11th, 
the  Suprema  reported  that  it  had  ordered  the  inquisitors  to 
desist.  If  it  did  so,  they  paid  no  attention  to  its  commands. 
Then,  June  11,  1713,  he  addressed  a  peremptory  order  to  Giudice 
to  revoke  all  that  had  been  done  in  the  Canaries,  to  recall  the 
inquisitors,  to  dismiss  them  and  give  them  no  other  appointments. 
The  Suprema  replied,  July  18th,  enclosing  an  order  which  it 
proposed  despatching;  this  displeased  him  as  not  in  compliance 
with  his  commands  and  he  insisted  on  their  complete  fulfilment. 
Still  there  was  evasion  and  delay  and  when,  in  July,  1714,  the 
Canary  chapter  presented  to  the  tribunal  royal  orders  requiring 
the  removal  of  the  excommunications  and  the  remission  of  the 
fines,  the  inquisitors  not  only  refused  obedience  but  commenced 
proceedings  against  the  notaries  who  served  them.  The  Suprema 
professed  to  have  sent  orders  similar  to  those  of  the  king,  but  it 
evidently  had  been  playing  a  double  game.  Philip  therefore, 
November  1,  1714,  addressed  the  inquisitor-general,  holding 
the  Suprema  responsible  for  the  prolonged  contumacy  of  the 
inquisitors;  he  ordered  it  to  deliver  to  him  the  originals  of  all 
the  correspondence  on  the  subject  and  required  the  inquisitor- 
general  to  issue  an  order  for  the  immediate  departure  from  the 
islands  of  the  inquisitors  and  fiscal,  without  forcing  the  governor 
to  expel  them,  as  he  had  orders  to  do  so  in  case  of  disobedience. 
Moreover,  if  the  Suprema  should  not,  within  fifteen  days,  deliver 
all  the  documents,  so  that  the  king  could  regulate  matters 
directly  with  the  tribunal,  the  old  suspended  suit  would  be 
reopened  and  such  action  would  be  taken  as  might  be  found 
requisite.     This  was  a  tone  wholly  different  from  that  to  which 


350  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  CROWN  [Book  II 

the  Inquisition  had  been  accustomed  under  the  Hapsburgs; 
the  evasions  and  delays  of  the  Suprema,  which  had  so  long  been 
successful,  proved  fruitless.  The  struggle  was  prolonged,  but 
the  royal  authority  prevailed  in  the  end,  although,  when  the 
inquisitors  reached  Spain,  in  the  summer  of  1715,  Giudice  had 
been  restored  to  office  and  Philip  weakly  permitted  them  to  be 
provided  for  in  other  tribunals  and  to  curse  fresh  communities 
with  their  lawless  audacity.^ 

We  shall  hereafter  have  occasion  to  see  how,  under  the  House 
of  Bourbon,  with  its  Gallican  ideas  as  to  royal  prerogative,  the 
subordination  of  the  Inquisition  became  recognized,  while  its 
jurisdiction  was  curtailed  and  its  influence  was  diminished. 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Legajo  1465,  fol.  2-8. — MSS.  of  Library 
of  Univ.  of  HaUe,  Yc,  2Q,  Tom.  17. 


CHAPTER   11. 

SUPEREMINENCE. 

When  the  Inquisition,  as  we  have  seen,  arrogated  to  itself 
almost  an  equality  with  the  sovereign,  it  necessarily  assumed 
supremacy  over  all  other  bodies  in  the  State.  Spain  had  been 
won  to  the  theory,  assiduously  taught  by  the  medieval  Church, 
that  the  highest  duty  of  the  civil  power  was  the  maintenance 
of  the  faith  in  its  purity  and  the  extermination  of  heresy  and 
heretics.  The  institution  to  which  this  duty  was  confided  there- 
fore enjoyed  pre-eminence  over  all  other  departments  of  the 
State  and  the  latter  were  bound,  whenever  called  upon,  to  lend 
it  whatever  aid  was  necessary.  To  refuse  to  assist  it,  to  criticise 
it,  or  even  to  fail  in  demonstrations  of  due  respect  to  those  who 
performed  its  awful  functions,  were  thus  offences  to  be  punished 
at  its  pleasure. 

Allusion  has  already  been  made  (p.  182)  to  the  oath  required 
of  officials  at  the  founding  of  the  Inquisition,  pledging  obedience 
and  assistance,  whenever  an  inquisitor  came  to  a  place  to  set 
up  his  tribunal.  This  was  not  enough,  for  feudahsm  still  disputed 
jurisdiction  with  the  crown,  and  the  inquisitor  was  directed  to 
summon  the  barons  before  him  and  make  them  take  not  only 
the  popular  oath  but  one  promising  to  allow  the  Inquisition 
free  course  in  their  lands,  failing  which  they  were  to  be  prose- 
cuted as  rebels.^  As  the  tribunals  became  fixed  in  their  several 
seats,  when  a  new  inquisitor  came  he  brought  royal  letters, 
addressed  to  all  officials,  from  the  viceroy  down,  commanding 
them,  under  penalty  of  five  thousand  florins,  to  lend  him  and 
his  subordinates  what  aid  was  necessary  and  to  obey  his  mandates 
in  making  arrests  and  executing  his  sentences,  and  this  was 
pubhshed  in  a  formal  proclamation,  with  sound  of  trumpets, 
by  the  viceroy  or  other  royal  representative.^  This  was  not  an 
empty  formality.    When,  in  1516,  the  Corregidor  of  Logroho,  the 


1  Instnicciones  de  1484,  ?  21.     (Arguello,  fol.  7.) 

2  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  31,  fol.  193,  194.     (See  Appendix.) 

(351) 


352  SUPEREMINENCE  [Book  II 

Comendador  Barrientos,  a  knight  of  Santiago,  ventured  to  assert 
that  the  faniihars  were  not  to  be  assisted  in  making  an  arrest, 
the  inquisitors  excommunicated  him  and  ordered  him  to  seek  the 
inquisitor-general  and  beg  for  pardon,  which  was  granted  only 
on  condition  of  his  appearance  in  a  public  auto  de  fe,  after  hear- 
ing mass  as  a  penitent,  on  his  knees  and  holding  a  candle,  after 
which  he  was  to  be  absolved  with  stripes  and  the  other  humiha- 
tions  inflicted  on  penitents/  This  was  not  merely  an  indignity  but 
a  lasting  mark  of  infamy,  extending  to  the  kindred  and  posterity. 
As  though  this  were  not  sufficient,  at  a  somewhat  later  period, 
the  officials  of  all  cities  where  tribunals  were  established  were 
required  to  take  an  elaborate  oath  to  the  inquisitors,  in  which 
they  swore  to  compel  every  one  within  their  jurisdiction  to 
hold  the  CathoUc  faith,  to  persecute  all  heretics  and  their  ad- 
herents, to  seize  and  bring  them  before  the  Inquisition  and  to 
denounce  them,  to  commit  no  public  office  to  such  persons  nor 
to  any  who  were  prohibited  by  the  inquisitors,  nor  to  receive 
them  in  their  families;  to  guard  all  the  pre-eminences,  privileges, 
exemptions  and  immunities  of  the  inquisitors,  their  officials  and 
familiars;  to  execute  all  sentences  pronounced  by  the  inquisitors 
and  to  be  obedient  to  God,  to  the  Roman  Church  and  to  the 
inquisitors  and  their  successors.^  In  this,  the  clause  pledging 
observance  of  the  privileges  and  exemptions  of  the  officials  was 
highly  important  for,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  the  privileges 
claimed  by  the  Inquisition  were  the  source  of  perpetual  and 
irritating  quarrels  with  the  royal  and  local  magistrates.  It  was 
an  innovation  of  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  for  Prince 
Philip,  in  a  letter  of  December  2,  1553,  to  the  tribunal  of  Valencia, 
says  that  he  hears  it  requires  the  royal  officials  to  swear  to  main- 
tain the  privileges,  usages  and  customs  of  the  Inquisition ;  this  he 
says  is  a  novelty  and,  as  he  does  not  approve  of  innovations,  he 
asks  what  authority  it  has  for  such  requirement.  To  this  the 
answer  was  that  every  year,  when  the  municipal  officials  enter 
upon  their  duties,  they  come  and  take  such  an  oath  and  the  records 
showed  that  this  had  been  observed  for  a  hundred  years  without 
contradiction.     This  seems  to  have  silenced  his  objections  and 


*  Llorente,  Hist.  crft.  Cap.  xxvi.  Art.  3,  n.  11. 

'  Pablo  Garcfa,  Orden  de  Procesar,  fol.  73. — This  is  an  official  manual  com- 
piled by  the  Aragonese  secretary  of  the  Suprema.  Originally  issued  about  1568 
it  was  reprinted  in  1592,  1607  and  1628.    My  references  are  to  the  last  edition. 

A  somewhat  different  formula  of  this  oath  is  given  by  Pdramo,  p.  573. 


Chap.  II]  OATHS  OF  OBEDIENCE  353 

the  formula  became  general.  The  Valencia  Concordia,  or  agree- 
ment of  1554,  simply  provides  that  the  secular  magistrates  shall 
take  the  accustomed  oath  and  what  that  was  is  doubtless  shown 
by  the  one  taken,  in  1626,  by  the  almotacen,  or  sealer  of  weights 
and  measures,  when  he  came  to  the  Inquisition  and  swore  on 
the  cross  and  the  gospels  to  observe  the  articles  customarily 
read  to  the  royal  officials  and  to  guard  the  privileges  of  the  Holy 
Office  and  defend  it  with  all  his  power.^ 

Even  all  this  was  insufficient  to  emphasize  the  universal 
subordination.  At  all  autos  de  fe,  which  were  attended  by  the 
highest  in  the  land  as  well  as  by  the  lowest,  and  at  the  annual 
proclamation  of  the  Edict  of  Faith,  to  which  the  whole  population 
was  summoned,  a  notary  of  the  Inquisition  held  up  a  cross  and 
addressed  the  people:  "Raise  your  hands  and  let  each  one  say 
that  he  swears  by  God  and  Santa  Maria  and  this  cross  and  the 
words  of  the  holy  gospels,  that  he  will  favor  and  defend  and  aid 
the  holy  Catholic  faith  and  the  holy  Inquisition,  its  ministers 
and  officials,  and  will  manifest  and  make  known  each  and  every 
heretic,  fautor,  defender  and  receiver  of  heretics  and  all  disturbers 
and  impeders  of  the  Holy  Office,  and  that  he  will  not  favor,  or 
help,  or  conceal  them  but,  as  soon  as  he  knows  of  them,  he  will 
denounce  them  to  the  inquisitors;  and  if  he  does  otherwise  that 
God  may  treat  him  as  those  who  knowingly  perjure  themselves: 
Let  every  one  say  Amen!"^  When  the  sovereign  was  present  at 
an  auto  this  general  oath  did  not  suffice  and  he  took  a  special 
one.  Thus,  at  the  ValladoHd  auto  of  May  21,  1559,  the  Inquisi- 
tor-general Valdes  administered  it  to  the  Regent  Juana  and  at 
that  of  Madrid,  in  1632,  Inquisitor-general  Zapata  went  to  the 
window  at  which  Philip  IV  was  seated,  with  a  missal  and  a  cross, 
on  which  the  king  swore  to  protect  and  defend  the  Catholic 
faith  as  long  as  he  lived  and  to  aid  and  support  the  Inquisition 
— an  oath  which  was  then  duly  read  aloud  to  the  people.^  Thus 
the  whole  nation  was  bound,  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  to 
be  obedient  to  the  Inquisition  and  to  submit  to  what  it  might 
assert  to  be  its  privileges. 


*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  688,  fol.  514.— MSS.  of  Bodleian 
Library,  Arch.  S,  130.— Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Legajo 
1,  Lib".  11,  fol.  158. 

*  Orden  de  Procesar,  fol.  72. 

»  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  12,  fol.  29.— Bibl.  nacionale  de 
France,  fonds  fran9ais,  2881,  fol.  7 

23 


354  SUPEBEMINENCE  [Book  II 

How  purely  ministerial  were  the  functions  of  the  public  offic- 
ials in  all  that  related  to  the  Inquisition,  even  under  Philip  V, 
was  illustrated  when,  at  Barcelona,  in  an  auto  de  fe,  June  28, 
1715,  a  bigamist  named  Medrano  was  sentenced  to  two  hundred 
lashes  to  be  inflicted  on  the  30th,  On  the  29th  word  was  sent  to 
the  public  executioner  to  be  ready  to  administer  them,  but  the 
Viceroy,  the  Marquis  of  Castel-Rodrigo,  forbade  the  executioner 
to  act  until  he  should  give  permission,  holding  that  no  public 
punishment  should  be  inflicted  until  he  should  be  officially  noti- 
fied of  the  sentence.  There  were  hasty  conferences  and  debates, 
lasting  to  nearly  midnight,  and  it  was  not  until  7  a.m.  of  the  30th 
that  the  marquis  gave  way  and  the  sentence  was  executed. 
The  tribunal  reported  the  affair  to  the  Suprema,  which  replied 
in  the  name  of  the  king,  diplomatically  thanking  the  marquis 
and  rebuking  his  legal  adviser,  who  was  told  that  it  was  his  duty 
and  that  of  all  officials  to  be  obedient  to  the  Inquisition.^ 

As  a  perpetual  reminder  of  this  subordination,  there  appears 
to  have  been  kept  in  the  royal  chancillery  the  formula  of  a  letter 
addressed  to  all  viceroys  and  captains-general.  This  recited 
the  invaluable  services  of  the  Inquisition  in  clearing  the  land  of 
infinite  heretics  and  preserving  it  from  the  convulsions  afflicting 
other  nations,  thus  rendering  its  efficiency  one  of  the  chief 
concerns  of  the  crown.  Therefore  the  king  charges  his  represen- 
tatives emphatically  to  honor  and  favor  all  inquisitors,  officials 
and  familiars,  giving  them  all  the  necessary  aid  for  which  they 
may  ask  and  enforcing  the  observance  of  all  the  privileges  and 
exemptions  conceded  to  them  by  law,  concorclias,  royal  cedulas, 
use  and  custom  and  in  any  other  way,  so  that  the  Holy  Office 
may  have  the  full  liberty  and  authority  which  it  has  always 
enjoyed  and  which  the  king  desires  it  to  retain.  A  copy  of  this 
was  sent  to  all  the  viceroys  in  1603  and,  as  I  have  chanced  to  find 
it  again  addressed,  in  1652,  to  the  Duke  of  Montalto,  then  Viceroy 
of  Valencia,  it  was  presumably  part  of  the  regular  instructions  fur- 
nished to  all  who  were  appointed  to  these  responsible  positions.^ 

In  the  interminable  conflicts  through  which  the  Inquisition 
established  its   enjoyment   of   the   powers   thus   conferred,   the 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Sala  39,  Leg.  4,  fol.  41. 

*  Portocarrero,  op.  cit.,  ?  1. — Solorzani  de  Indiar.  Gubem.,  Lib.  in,  cap.  xxiv, 
n.  16. — Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  Lib.  3,  foL 
49-69. 


Chap.  II]  POWER  TO  CRIPPLE  OPPONENTS  355 

inquisitor  was  armed,  offensively  and  defensively,  in  a  manner 
to  give  him  every  advantage.  He  could,  at  any  moment,  when 
involved  in  a  struggle  with  either  the  secular  or  ecclesiastical 
authorities,  disable  his  opponent  with  a  sentence  of  excom- 
munication removable  only  by  the  Holy  Office  or  the  pope 
and,  if  this  did  not  suffice,  he  could  lay  an  interdict  or  even  a 
cessatio  a  divinis  on  cities,  until  the  people,  deprived  of  the 
sacraments,  would  compel  submission.  It  is  true  that,  in  1533, 
the  Suprema  ordered  that  much  discretion  should  be  exercised 
in  the  use  of  this  powerful  weapon,  on  account  of  the  indignation 
aroused  by  its  abuse,  but  we  shall  have  ample  opportunity  to 
see  how  recklessly  it  was  employed  habitually,  without  regard 
to  the  prehminary  safeguards  imposed  by  the  canons.^  On  the 
other  hand,  the  inquisitor  was  practically  immune.  His  antago- 
nists were  mostly  secular  authorities  who  had  no  such  weapon 
in  their  armories  and,  when  he  chanced  to  quarrel  with  a  prelate, 
he  usually  took  care  to  be  the  first  to  fulminate  an  exconmmni- 
cation,  and  then  unconcernedly  disregarded  the  counter  censures 
as  uttered  by  one  disabled  from  the  exercise  of  his  functions,  for 
the  anathema  deprived  its  subject  of  all  official  faculties.  It 
had  the  contingent  result,  moreover,  that  he  who  remained  under 
excommunication  for  a  year  could  be  prosecuted  for  suspicion  of 
heresy.^ 

There  was  another  provision  which  rendered  it  even  more 
formidable  as  an  antagonist.  In  matters  of  faith  and  all  per- 
taining directly  or  indirectly  thereto,  its  jurisdiction  was  ex- 
clusive. In  the  extensive  field  of  civil  and  criminal  business,  of 
which  it  obtained  cognizance  through  the  immunities  of  its 
officials  and,  in  the  frequent  quarrels  arising  from  questions 
of  ceremony  and  precedence,  no  court,  whether  secular  or 
spiritual,  had  power  to  inhibit  any  action  which  it  might  see 
fit  to  take.  By  special  papal  favor,  however,  it  had  power  to 
inhibit  their  action  and  thus  to  cripple  them  on  the  spot.  This 
extraordinary  privilege,  with  power  to  subdelegate,  appears  to 
have  been  first  granted  in  the  commissions  issued,  in  1507,  to 
Ximenes  and  Enguera  as  inquisitors-general  respectively  of 
Castile  and  Aragon  and  was  repeated  in  those  of  Luis  Mercader 


^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Libro  939,  fol.  63. — Cf.  Concil.  Trident.  Sess.  xxv,  De 
Reform,  cap.  3. — Ferraris,  Prompta  Bibliotheca,  s.  v.  Excom.  Art.  5,  n.  17. 
'  C.  Trident,  ubi  sup. 


356  SUPEBEMINENCE  [Book  II 

and  Pedro  Juan  Poul  in  1513.^  For  a  considerable  time  this 
clause  disappears  from  the  commissions,  but,  towards  the  close 
of  the  century,  it  again  finds  place,  in  a  more  detailed  and  abso- 
lute form  in  that  granted  to  Manrique  de  Lara,  after  which  it 
continued  in  those  of  his  successors  to  the  end.  It  confers  the 
power  of  inhibiting  all  judges,  even  of  archiepiscopal  dignity, 
under  pecuniary  penalties  and  censures  to  be  enforced  by  the 
invocation  of  the  secular  arm  and  of  absolving  them  after  they 
shall  have  submitted  and  obeyed.^  This  proclaimed  to  the  world 
that  the  Inquisition  outranked  all  other  authorities  in  Church 
and  State  and  the  power  was  too  often  exercised  for  its  existence 
to  be  ignored  or  forgotten.  This  superiority  found  practical 
expression  in  the  rule  that,  in  the  innumerable  conflicts  of  juris- 
diction, all  secular  and  ecclesiastical  judges  must  answer  com- 
munications from  inquisitors  in  the  form  of  petition  and  not  by 
letter.  If  they  replied  to  commands  and  comminations  by  letter 
they  were  to  be  fined  and  proceedings  were  to  be  commenced 
against  them  and  their  messengers,  and  they  were  required  to 
withdraw  and  erase  from  their  records  all  such  letters  which 
were  held  to  be  disrespectful  to  the  superiority  of  the  Holy 
Office.^ 

It  was  an  inevitable  inference  from  this  that  there  was  no 
direct  appeal  from  whatever  a  tribunal  might  do  except  to  the 
Suprema,  which,  though  it  might  in  secret  chide  its  subordinates 
for  their  excesses,  customarily  upheld  them  before  the  world. 
The  sovereign,  it  is  true,  was  the  ultimate  judge  and,  in  occasional 
cases,  he  interposed  his  authority  with  more  or  less  effect;  but 
the  ordinary  process  was  through  a  competencia,  a  cumbrous 


*  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  I  de  copias,  fol.  10,  13,  15. — "Et 
quibuscunque  judicibus  et  personis  quibus  tibi  inhibendum  videbitur  etiam  sub 
censuris  et  privationis  et  inhabilitatis  poenis  inhibendi." 

^  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  IV,  fol.  118,  137;  Libro  V,  fol.  117, 
136,  138,  151,  199,  200,  251,  264,  295.— Archive  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia, 
Leg.  629. 

This  clause  probably  explains  a  peculiarity  in  the  issue  of  Manrique  de  Lara's 
commission.  After  the  death  of  Quiroga,  Nov.  20,  1594,  Clement  VIII  issued  to 
Manrique,  Feb.  10,  1595,  a  commission  subrogating  him  to  Quiroga,  with  the 
same  powers,  for  six  months  until  further  letters  could  be  made  out.  Then, 
August  1,  1595,  the  full  elaborate  commission  is  made  out,  containing  this  clause 
(Bulario,  loc.  cit.,  118,  119).  The  new  clause  must  have  evoked  prolonged  debate, 
requiring  five  months  for  its  settlement. 

»  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218^,  p.  338. 


Chap.  II]  ASSERTION  OF  SUPERIORITY  357 

procedure  through  which,  as  we  shall  see,  the  Inquisition  could 
wrangle  for  years  and  virtually,  in  most  cases,  deny  all  practical 
relief  to  the  sufferers. 

Another  weapon  of  tremendous  efficacy  was  the  power  of 
arrest,  possessed  at  will  by  inquisitors  during  the  greater  portion 
of  the  career  of  the  Inquisition.  Even  to  gratify  mere  vindict- 
iveness,  by  simply  asserting  that  there  was  a  matter  of  faith, 
the  inquisitor  could  throw  any  one  into  the  secret  prison.  The 
civil  magistrate  might  thus  abuse  his  authority  with  little 
damage  to  the  victim,  but  it  was  otherwise  with  the  Inquisition. 
In  the  insane  estimate  placed  on  limpieza  de  sangre,  or  purity 
of  blood,  the  career  of  a  man  and  of  his  descendants  was  fatally 
narrowed  .by  such  a  stain  on  his  orthodoxy;  it  mattered  httle 
what  was  the  outcome  of  the  case,  the  fact  of  imprisonment 
was  remembered  and  handed  down  through  generations  while 
the  fact  of  its  being  causeless  was  forgotten.  In  the  later  period, 
when  the  Suprema  supervised  every  act  of  the  tribunals,  the 
opportunities  for  this  were  greatly  restricted,  but  during  the 
more  active  times  the  ill-will  of  an  inquisitor  could  at  any  mo- 
ment inflict  this  most  serious  injury  and  the  power  was  often 
recklessly  abused  in  the  perpetual  conflicts  with  the  secular 
authorities.  The  ability  thus  to  destroy  at  a  word  the  pros- 
pects in  life  of  any  man  was  a  terrible  weapon  which  goes  far 
to  explain  the  awe  with  which  the  inquisitor  was  regarded  by 
the  community. 

That  the  inquisitor  should  assume  to  be  superior  to  all  other 
dignitaries  was  the  natural  result  of  the  powers  thus  concen- 
trated in  him.  Paramo  asserts  that  he  is  the  individual  of 
highest  authority  in  his  district,  as  he  represents  both  pope  and 
king;  and  the  Suprema,  in  a  consulta  addressed  to  Philip  V,  in 
1713,  boasted  that  its  jurisdiction  was  so  superior  that  there 
was  not  a  person  in  the  kingdom  exempt  from  it.^  The  haughty 
supremacy  which  it  affected  is  seen  in  instructions  issued  in 
1578  that  inquisitors,  when  the  tribunal  is  sitting,  are  not  to 
go  forth  to  receive  any  one,  save  the  king,  the  queen  or  a  royal 
prince  and  are  not,  in  an  official  capacity,  to  appear  in  recep- 
tions of  prelates  or  other  public  assemblies,  and  this  was  virtuallj'' 
repeated  in  1645,  when  they  were  told  not  to  visit  the  viceroy 


1  Pdramo,  p.  537.— MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  Tom.  17. 


358  SUPEBEMINENCE  [Book  II 

or  the  archbishop  or  accept  their  invitations,  for  such  demon- 
strations were  due  only  to  the  person  of  the  king/  Exception, 
however,  was  probably  taken  to  this  for  a  carta  acordada  of 
March  17,  1648,  lays  down  less  stringent  rules  and  specifies  for 
each  tribunal,  according  to  the  varying  customs  of  different 
places,  the  high  officials  whom  the  inquisitor  is  permitted  to 
visit  on  induction  into  office  and  on  occasions  of  condolence 
or  congratulation.^ 

In  the  social  hierarchy  the  viceroys  and  captains-general 
stood  next  to  the  king  as  representing,  in  their  respective 
governments,  the  royal  person.  To  outrank  these  exalted  per- 
sonages was  not  beyond  inquisitorial  ambition.  In  1588  there 
was  great  scandal  in  Lima,  when  the  inquisitors  claimed  pre- 
cedence over  the  Count  of  Villar,  the  Viceroy  of  Peru,  and 
carried  their  point  by  excommunicating  him,  but  Phihp  II, 
in  a  cedula  of  March  8, 1589,  took  them  severely  to  task  for  their 
arrogance  and  added  that  the  viceroy  was  equally  to  blame 
for  yielding,  as  he  represented  the  royal  power.  This  lesson 
was  ineffectual  and  some  years  later  another  method  was  tried 
of  asserting  superiority.  In  1596,  the  Captain-general  of  Aragon 
complained  to  the  king  that,  in  the  recent  auto  de  fe,  the  inquisi- 
tors had  refused  to  give  him  the  title  of  Excellency.  To  this 
Philip  replied,  February  6,  1597,  that  it  was  unreasonable  for 
them  thus  to  affect  equality  with  his  personal  representative; 
they  must  either  concede  to  him  the  title  of  Excellency  or  them- 
selves be  treated  as  vuestra  merced,  in  place  of  muy  ilustres 
or  senoria,  and  therefore  he  could  attend  the  next  auto.^ 

This  asserted  superiority  of  the  Inquisition  was  very  galling 
to  the  bishops,  who  argued  that  the  Holy  Office  had  been  founded 
only  four  hundred  years  before,  as  an  aid  to  their  jurisdiction, 
and  they  resented  bitterly  the  efforts  of  the  resolute  upstarts 
to  claim  higher  privileges  and  precedence.  The  Inquisition,  how- 
ever, was  an  organized  whole,  with  sharp  and  unsparing  methods 


^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  939,  fol.  65;  Libro  941,  fol.  5;  Libro 
71,  fol.  143.— MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b,  p.  300.— MSS  of  Bibl. 
nacional  de  Lima,  Protocolo  223,  Expediente  5270. 

'  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  31St>,  p.  302. — Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion 
de  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  170. 

^  Solorzano,  De  Gubematione  Indiarum,  Lib.  iii,  Tit.  xxiv,  n.  53. — MSS.  of 
Bibl.  nacional  de  Lima,  Protocolo  228,  Expediente  5287. — Archive  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,   Legajo  1465,  fol.   63. 


Chap.  II]  ASSERTION  OF  SUPERIORITY  359 

of  enforcing  its  claims  and  protected  in  every  way  from  assault, 
while  the  episcopate  was  a  scattered  and  unwieldy  body,  acting 
individually  and,  for  the  most  part,  powerless  to  defend  the 
officials,  through  whom  it  acted,  from  those  who  claimed  that 
everything  concerning  themselves  was  a  matter  of  faith  of  which 
they  had  exclusive  cognizance.  The  serious  conflicts  over  juris- 
diction will  be  considered  in  a  subsequent  chapter;  here  we  are 
concerned  merely  with  questions  of  etiquette  and  ceremonial. 
Seen  through  the  perspective  of  the  centuries,  these  quarrels, 
which  were  conducted  with  frantic  eagerness,  seem  trivialities 
unworthy  of  record,  but  their  significance  was  momentous  to  the 
parties  concerned,  as  they  involved  superiority  and  inferiority. 
The  hundred  years'  quarrel  over  precedence  in  Rome,  between 
the  ambassadors  of  France  and  Spain,  which  was  not  settled 
until  1661  by  the  triumph  of  France,  had  a  meaning  beyond 
a  mere  question  of  ceremony.  In  Spain  these  debates  often  filled 
the  land  with  confusion.  All  parties  were  tenacious  of  what  they 
conceived  to  be  their  rights  and  were  ready  to  explode  in  violence 
on  the  smallest  provocation.  The  enormous  mass  of  letters 
and  papers  concerning  the  seats  and  positions  of  the  inquisitors 
and  their  officials  at  all  public  functions — whether  seats  should 
be  chairs  or  benches  and  whether  they  were  to  have  canopies, 
or  cushions,  or  carpets,  shows  that  these  were  regarded  as  matters 
of  the  highest  moment,  giving  rise  to  envenomed  quarrels  with 
the  ecclesiastical  and  secular  dignitaries,  requiring  for  their 
settlement  the  interposition  of  the  royal  authority.  The  inquisi- 
tors were  constantly  arrogating  to  themselves  external  marks 
of  superiority  and  the  others  were  disputing  it  with  a  vehemence 
that  elevated  the  most  trivial  affairs  into  matters  of  national 
importance,  and  the  attention  of  the  king  and  the  highest  minis- 
ters was  diverted  from  affairs  of  state  to  pacify  obscure  quarrels 
in  every  corner  of  the  land. 

It  would  be  futile  to  enter  into  the  details  of  these  multi- 
tudinous squabbles,  but  one  or  two  subjects  in  dispute  may  be 
mentioned  to  illustrate  the  ingenuity  with  which  the  Inquisition 
pushed  its  claims  to  superiority.  Towards  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century  it  demanded  that,  when  there  was  an  epis- 
copal letter  or  mandate  to  be  published  in  the  churches  and  also 
an  edict  or  letter  of  the  Inquisition,  the  latter  should  have 
precedence  in  the  reading.  This  was  naturally  regarded  as  an 
effort  to  show  that  the  inquisitorial  jurisdiction  was  superior  to 


360  SUPEREMINENCE  [Book  II 

the  episcopal  and  it  led  to  frequent  scandals.  In  1645,  at  Valen- 
cia, on  Passion  Sunday,  a  secretary  of  the  tribunal  endeavored 
to  read  letters  of  the  inquisitors  before  one  of  the  archbishop's, 
but,  by  the  latter's  order,  the  priest  refused  to  give  way,  where- 
upon the  inquisitors  arrested  him:  the  matter  was  carried  up  to 
to  the  king,  who  ordered  the  priest  to  be  discharged  in  such  wise 
that  there  should  be  no  record  of  his  prosecution  and  that  his 
good  fame  should  be  restored.  Soon  after  this,  in  Saragossa, 
on  a  feast-day  in  the  cathedral,  a  priest  commenced  to  read  an 
archiepiscopal  letter,  but  before  he  had  finished  more  than  a 
few  lines,  a  secretary  of  the  Inquisition  mounted  the  other  pulpit 
and  began  reading  a  letter  of  the  Inquisition;  the  priest  was  so 
disturbed  that  he  stopped,  whereupon  the  archbishop,  Juan 
Cebrian,  ordered  his  arrest,  but  he  pleaded  his  surprise  and 
confusion  and  the  archbishop  relented.  In  1649  a  more  deter- 
mined effort  was  made  by  the  Saragossa  tribunal.  August  15th 
the  parish  priest  of  the  cathedral  read  certain  archiepiscopal 
letters  at  the  accustomed  time  and  was  followed  by  the  secretary 
of  the  Inquisition  with  others  of  the  inquisitors.  Two  days 
later  the  priest  was  summoned  before  the  tribunal  and  was  made 
to  swear  secrecy  as  to  orders  given  to  him.  The  result  showed 
what  were  his  instructions,  for  the  next  Sunday,  having  archi- 
episcopal letters  to  read,  he  waited  until  the  secretary  read  those 
of  the  inquisitors.  Some  days  later  similar  secret  orders  were 
given  to  the  priest  of  Nuestra  Sefiora  del  Pilar  and  when,  on 
October  11th,  he  commenced  reading  an  archiepiscopal  letter, 
an  officer  of  the  Inquisition  seized  him  by  the  arm  and  forced 
him  to  read  first  those  of  the  tribunal.  Archbishop  Cebrian 
addressed  memorials  to  the  king,  September  7th  and  21st  and 
October  12th  asking  his  protection  to  preserve  the  archiepiscopal 
jurisdiction;  the  Council  of  Aragon  presented  a  consulta  sup- 
porting him,  on  which  the  wearied  monarch  made  an  endorse- 
ment, deploring  the  evil  results  of  such  conflicts  and  telling  the 
Council  to  write  to  the  archbishop  not  to  proceed  to  extremities 
but  to  seek  some  adjustment  similar  to  that  by  which,  a  short 
time  before.  Cardinal  Moscoso  in  Toledo  had  caused  an  inquisi- 
torial letter  to  be  read  on  a  different  day,  to  which  the  tribunal 
must  be  made  to  conform.^ 

The  persistence  with  which  the  Inquisition  maintained  any 


'  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528,  n.  2. 


Chap.  II]  ASSERTION  OF  SUPERIORITY  361 

claim  once  advanced  is  illustrated  by  its  endeavor  to  introduce 
a  change  in  the  ritual  of  the  mass  favorable  to  its  assumption 
of  superiority.      It  was  the  custom  that  the  celebrant  should 
make  a  bow  to  the  bishop,  if  present,  and  in  his  absence,  to  the 
Eucharist.    In  1635,  at  ValladoUd,  the  inquisitors  required  that 
when  the  Edict  of  Faith  was  read  the  bow  should  be  made  to 
them  and,  on  the  refusal  of  the  officiating  canon,  they  arrested 
him  and  the  dean  who  upheld  him  and  held  them  under  heavy 
bail.     This  aroused  the  whole  city  and  brought  a  rebuke  from 
the  king,  who  ordered  them  to  discharge  the  bail  and  not  to 
abuse  their  jurisdiction.    Unabashed  by  this  the  effort  was  made 
again  at  Compostella,  in  1639,  and  duly  resisted;  the  king  was 
again  obliged  to  examine  the  question  and,  after  consultation 
with  learned  men,  decided  that  the  chapter  was  in  the  right  and 
that  the  inquisitors  had  the  alternative  of  absenting  themselves 
from  the  reading.    Two  rebuffs  such  as  this  should  have  sufficed 
but,   in    1643,   after   careful   preparation,  another   attempt  was 
made  at  Cordova,  which  produced  a  fearful  scandal.     Neither 
side  would  yield;  the  services  were  interrupted;  the  inquisitors 
endeavored  to  excommunicate  the  canons,  but  the  latter  raised 
such  a  din  with  howls  and  cries,  the  thunder  of  the  organ,  the 
clangor  of  bells  and  breaking  up  the  seats  in  the  choir,  that  the 
fulmination  could  not  be  heard.     Even  the  inquisitors  shrank 
from  the  storm  and  left  the  church  amid  hisses,  with  their  caps 
pulled  down  to  their  eyes,  but  they  lost  no  time  in  commencing 
a  prosecution  of  the  canons,  who  appealed  to  the  king,  in  a  por- 
tentous document  covering  two  hundred  and  fifty-six  folio  pages. 
Philip  and  his  advisers  at  the  moment  had  ample  occupation, 
what  with  the  dismissal  of  OHvares,  the  evil  tidings  from  Rocroy 
and  the  rebelUons  in  Catalonia  and  Portugal,  but  they  had  to 
turn  aside  to  settle  this  portentous  quarrel.     A  royal  letter  of 
June  16,  1643,  ordered  the  inquisitors  to  restore  to  the  canons 
certain  properties   which   they  had   seized  and  to  remove  the 
excommunications,  while  reference  to  similar  decisions  at  Com- 
postella,   Granada    and    Cartagena    shows    how    obstinate  and 
repeated  had  been  the  effort  of  the  Holy  Office.    Notwithstanding 
this   the   tribunal   of   Cordova  refused   obedience   to   the  royal 
mandate  and  a  second  letter,  of  September  28th  from  Saragossa, 
where  Philip  was  directing  the  campaign  against  Catalonia,  was 
required.     This  was  couched  in  peremptory  terms;  the  excom- 
munications must  be  removed  and,  for  the  future,  the  Roman 


362  SUPEREMINENCE  [Book  II 

ceremonial  must  be  observed,  prescribing  that  in  the  absence  of 
the  bishop,  the  reverence  must  be  made  to  the  sacrament/ 

While  thus  steadily  endeavoring  to  encroach  on  the  rights 
of  others,  the  Inquisition  was  supersensitive  as  to  anything 
that  might  be  reckoned  as  an  attempt  by  other  bodies  to  assert 
superiority,  and  it  vindicated  what  it  held  to  be  its  rights  with 
customary  violence.  When  the  funeral  solemnities  of  Queen  Ana 
of  Austria  were  celebrated  in  Seville,  in  1580,  a  bitter  quarrel 
about  precedence  in  seats  arose  between  the  tribunal,  the  royal 
Audiencia  or  high  court  and  the  city  authorities,  when  the  former 
arbitrarily  suspended  the  obsequies  until  consultation  could  be 
had  with  Philip  II,  then  in  Lisbon,  engaged  in  the  absorption 
of  Portugal.  He  regulated  the  position  which  each  of  the  con- 
tending parties  should  occupy  and  the  postponed  honors  were 
duly  rendered.  Matters  remained  quiescent  until  a  similar 
function  became  necessary,  after  the  death  of  Philip  in  1598. 
The  city  spent  weeks  in  costly  preparations  and  the  catafalque 
erected  in  the  cathedral  was  regarded  as  worthy  of  that  magnifi- 
cent building.  November  29th  was  fixed  for  the  ceremonies; 
on  the  vigil,  the  regent,  or  president  judge  of  the  Audiencia, 
sent  a  chair  from  his  house  to  the  place  assigned  to  him,  but  the 
chapter  protested  so  vigorously  against  the  innovation  that  he 
was  obliged  to  remove  it.  The  following  morning,  when  the 
various  bodies  entered  the  church  at  half-past  nine,  the  benches 
assigned  to  the  judges  and  their  wives  were  seen  to  be  draped 
in  mourning.  This  was  at  once  regarded  as  an  effort  on  their 
part  to  establish  pre-eminence  and  excited  great  indignation. 
The  services  commenced  and  during  the  mass  the  inquisitors  sent 
word  to  the  cabildo,  or  city  magistracy,  that  it  should  order  the 
mourning  removed.  After  some  demur,  the  cabildo  sent  its 
procurador  mayor,  Pedro  de  Escobar,  with  a  notary  and  some 
alguaziles  to  the  Audiencia,  bearing  a  message  to  the  effect  that 
if  the  drapery  were  not  removed,  the  inquisitors  and  the  church 
authorities  were  agreed  that  the  ceremonies  should  be  suspended. 
He  was  told  not  to  approach  and  on  persisting  he  and  his  followers 
were  arrested  and  thrown  into  the  public  gaol.  The  inquisitors 
then  sent  their  secretary  with  a  message,  but  he  too  was  kept  at  a 


^  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130. — Cartas  de  Jesuitas  (Memorial  hist, 
espanol,  XVII,  70-75). — Juan  Gomez  Bravo,  Catdlogo  de  los  Obispos  de  Cordova, 
p.  643. 


Chap.  II]  QUESTIONS  OF  CEREMONY  363 

distance,  when  he  mounted  the  steps  of  the  catafalque  and  cried 
out  that  the  tribunal  excommunicated  the  three  judges,  Vallejo, 
Lorenzana  and  Guerra,  if  they  did  not  depart,  A  second  time 
he  came  with  a  message,  which  he  was  not  allowed  to  deliver, 
and  again  he  mounted  the  steps  to  declare  all  the  judges  excom- 
municated and  that  they  must  leave  the  church  in  order  that 
the  services  might  proceed,  for  the  presence  of  excommunicates 
was  a  bar  to  all  public  worship.  This  was  repeated  again  by  the 
fiscal,  when  the  Audiencia  drew  up  a  paper  declaring  the  acts  of 
the  tribunal  to  be  null  and  void  and  ordering  it  to  remove  the 
censure  under  pain  of  forfeiting  citizenship  and  temporalities, 
but  the  scrivener  sent  to  serve  it  was  refused  a  hearing  and 
on  his  persisting  was  threatened  with  the  pillory.  The  alcalde 
of  the  city  endeavored  to  calm  the  inquisitors,  but  Inquisitor 
Zapata  replied  furiously  that  if  St.  Paul  came  from  heaven  and 
ordered  them  to  do  otherwise  they  would  refuse  if  it  cost  them 
their  souls. 

Meanwhile  there  were  similar  trouble  and  complications  among 
the  church  authorities.  The  vicar-general,  Pedro  Ramirez  de 
Leon,  ordered  the  services  resumed,  under  pain,  for  the  dean 
and  officiating  priest,  of  excommunication  and  of  a  thousand 
ducats;  the  precentor  and  canons  appealed  to  the  pope,  but  the 
vicar-general  published  them  in  the  choir  as  excommunicates. 
The  celebrant.  Dr.  Negron,  was  sought  for,  but  he  had  prudently 
disappeared  in  the  confusion  and  could  not  be  found.  It  was 
now  half-past  twelve  and  the  canons  sent  word  to  the  Audiencia 
that  they  were  going  and  it  could  go.  To  leave  the  church, 
however,  would  seem  like  an  admission  by  the  judges  that  they 
were  excommunicate  and  they  grimly  kept  their  seats.  The 
cabildo  of  the  city  and  the  tribunal  were  not  to  be  outdone  and 
the  three  hostile  groups  sat  glaring  at  each  other  until  four 
o'clock,  when  the  absurdity  of  the  situation  grew  too  strong 
and  they  silently  departed.  Meanwhile  the  candles  had  been 
burning  until  five  hundred  ducats'  worth  of  wax  was  uselessly 
consumed. 

So  comphcated  a  quarrel  could  of  course  only  be  straightened 
out  by  the  king  to  whom  all  parties  promptly  appealed.  The 
judges  proved  that  they  had  not  draped  their  benches  as  a  sign 
of  pre-eminence  but  had  proposed  that  the  same  be  done  by  the 
cabildo  and  the  tribunal.  As  far  as  regards  the  latter,  the  royal 
decision  was  manifested  in  two  cedulas  of  December  22d.     One 


364  SUPEREMINENCE  [Book  II 

of  these  told  the  inquisitors  that  they  had  exceeded  their 
jurisdiction  in  excommunicating  the  judges,  whom  they  were  to 
absolve  ad  cautelam  and  they  also  had  to  pay  for  the  wasted 
wax.  The  other  ominously  ordered  the  inquisitors  Blanco  and 
Zapata  to  appear  at  the  court  within  fifteen  days  and  not  to 
depart  without  licence.  At  the  same  time,  on  December  21st  the 
suspended  obsequies  were  duly  celebrated/ 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  cases  that  the  only  appeal  from 
inquisitorial  aggression  lay  to  the  king  and  that,  even  when  the 
inquisitors  were  wholly  in  the  wrong  and  the  royal  decision  was 
against  them,  no  steps  were  taken  to  keep  them  within  bounds 
for  the  future.  The  altered  position  of  the  Holy  Office  under 
the  Bourbons  was  therefore  significantly  indicated  by  a  decision 
of  Fernando  VI  in  1747.  At  the  celebration  in  Granada,  on  Sep- 
tember 11th,  of  his  accession,  the  chancilleria,  or  great  high 
court  of  New  Castile,  observed  that  the  archbishop  occupied  a 
chair  covered  with  tafTety,  outside  of  his  window  overlooking 
the  plaza,  and  that  the  inquisitors  had  cushions  on  their  window- 
sills.  It  sent  messengers  to  request  the  removal  of  these  symbols 
of  pre-eminence  and,  on  receiving  a  refusal  in  terms  of  scant 
respect,  it  stopped  the  second  bull-fight  and  put  an  end  to  the 
ceremonies.  The  matter  was  referred  to  the  king,  when  the 
Suprema,  in  a  memorial  of  solemn  earnestness,  argued  that  the 
Inquisition  had  for  centuries  been  in  the  uncontested  enjoy- 
ment of  the  privilege  of  which  it  was  now  sought  to  be  deprived. 
It  was  the  highest  tribunal,  not  only  in  Spain  but  in  the  world, 
as  it  had  charge  of  the  true  religion,  which  is  the  foundation  of 
all  kingdoms  and  republics.  The  time  had  passed  for  this  swell- 
ing self-assertion.  Full  discussion  was  devoted  to  the  momen- 
tous question  and,  on  October  3d,  Fernando  issued  a  decree 
which  proclaimed  to  Spain  that  the  Holy  Office  was  no  longer 
what  it  had  been.  This  was  to  the  effect  that,  as  the  chancil- 
leria represented  the  royal  jurisdiction,  and  thus  indirectly  the 
king  himself,  it  was  entitled  to  pre-eminence  in  all  such  celebra- 
tions and  in  those  of  the  royal  chapel;  it  was  justified  in  its 
action  and  thereafter  no  such  signs  of  dignity  as  canopies,  cushions, 
ceremonial  chairs  and  the  like  should  be  used  in  its  presence.  In 
case  of  attempts  to  do  so,  one  of  the  alcaldes  del  crimen  with 


*  Arino,  Sucesos  de  Sevilla,  pp.  103,  105;  Appendix  (Sevilla,  1873). — Archive 
de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  937,  fol.  220. 


Chap.  II]  SUPERIORITY  TO  LA  W  365 

his    officers   should    remove    them   and    punish    any   workmen 
engaged  in  setting  them  up/ 

The  Inquisition  and  its  members  were  protected  in  every 
way  from  subjection  to  local  laws  and  regulations.  An  edict  of 
Charles  V,  in  1523,  forbade  all  municipalities  or  other  bodies 
from  adopting  statutes  which  should  in  any  way  curtail  their 
privileges  or  be  adverse  to  them  and,  if  any  such  should  be 
attempted  he  declared  them  in  advance  to  be  null  and  void.^ 
This,  in  fact,  was  only  expressing  and  enforcing  the  canon  laws 
enacted  in  the  frenzied  efforts  to  suppress  heresy  in  the  thirteenth 
century  and  still  in  vigor.  A  constitution  of  Urban  IV  (1261-5) 
declares  invahd  the  laws  of  any  state  or  city  which  impede, 
directly  or  indirectly,  the  functions  of  the  Inquisition,  and  the 
bishop  or  inquisitor  is  empowered  to  sunmion  the  ruler  or  magis- 
trates to  exhibit  such  statutes  and  compel  him  by  censures  to 
revoke  or  modify  them.^  While  this  was  designed  to  prevent 
the  crippling  of  the  Inquisition  by  hostile  legislation,  it  inferred 
a  superiority  to  law  and  was  construed  in  the  most  hberal  way, 
as  was  seen  in  a  struggle  in  Valencia  which  lasted  for  nearly  two 
centuries.  A  police  regulation  for  the  improvement  of  the 
market-place  ordered  the  removal  of  all  stands  for  the  display  of 
goods  under  the  arcades  of  the  houses.  One  house  belonged  to 
the  tribunal;  its  tenant  was  the  worst  offender,  and  he  obsti- 
nately kept  his  stand  and  appealed  to  the  tribunal  for  protection 
against  the  law.  This  protection  was  accorded  with  such  vigor 
in  1603,  that  the  saintly  Archbishop,  Juan  de  Ribera,  who  was 
also  captain-general,  vainly  endeavored  to  secure  obedience  to 
the  law.  Until  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  tribunal 
thus  successfully  defied  the  Real  Junta  de  Policia,  consisting 
of  the  captain-general,  the  regente  and  other  high  officials.  At 
length,  in  1783,  Carlos  III  issued  a  royal  declaration  that  no  one 
should  be  exempt  from  obedience  to  orders  of  police  and  good 
government  and  that  all  such  cases  should  be  adjudicated  by 
the  ordinary  courts  without  admitting  the  competencias  with 
which  the  Holy  Office  habitually  sought  to  tire  out  those  who 
ventured  to  withstand  its  aggressiveness.  Under  this,  in  1791, 
the  nuisance  in  Valencia  was  abated,  when  the  tribunal  apolo- 


^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  1465,  fol.  46.— Archive  de  Alcald, 
Hacienda,  Leg.  544^,  Libro  8. 

2  Portocarrero,  op.  cit.,  ?  57.  '  Cap.  9  in  Sexto,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  ii. 


366  SUPEREMINENCE  [Book  II 

gized  to  the  Suprema  for  yielding  and  excused  itself  in  virtue 
of  the  royal  declaration  of  1783.  It  had  held  out  as  long  as  it 
could,  but  times  had  changed  and  even  the  Inquisition  was  forced 
to  respect  the  law/  Madrid  had  been  earlier  relieved  from  such 
annoyance,  for  a  royal  cedula  of  1746,  regulating  the  police 
system  of  the  capital,  has  a  clause  evidently  directed  at  the 
Inquisition  for  it  declares  that  no  exemption,  even  the  most 
privileged,  shall  avail  in  matters  concerning  the  police,  the 
adornment  and  the  cleanliness  of  the  city.^ 

The  lawlessness  thus  fostered  degenerated  into  an  arbitrary  dis- 
regard of  the  rights  of  others,  leading  to  a  petty  tyranny  some- 
times exercised  in  the  most  arbitrary  and  capricious  manner. 
Inquisitor  Santos  of  Saragossa  was  very  friendly  with  the  Licen- 
ciado  Pedro  de  Sola,  a  beneficed  priest  of  the  cathedral,  and 
Juan  Sebastian,  who  were  good  musicians  and  who  gathered  some 
musical  friends  to  sing  complins  with  them  on  Holy  Saturday  at 
Santa  Engracia,  where  the  inquisitors  spent  Holy  Week  in 
retreat.  Santos  used  to  send  his  coach  for  them  and  entertain 
them  handsomely,  but  when,  in  1624,  he  became  Bishop  of 
Solsona,  although  the  singing  continued,  the  coach  and  enter- 
tainment ceased  and  the  musicians  went  unwillingly.  Finally, 
in  1637,  some  of  them  stopped  going;  the  inquisitors  sent  for 
them  and  scolded  them  which  made  them  all  indignant.  Then, 
in  1638,  the  secretary  Heredia  was  sent  to  order  them  to  go  and 
when  the  chapel-master  excused  them,  with  an  intimation  that 
they  ought  to  be  paid,  Heredia  told  them  the  tribunal  honored 
them  sufficiently  in  calhng  for  them.  They  did  not  go  and, 
when  Easter  was  over,  two  of  them,  beneficed  priests,  were 
summoned  and,  after  being  kept  waiting  for  three  hours,  were 
imprisoned  in  a  filthy  little  house  occupied  by  soldiers  and  were 
left  for  twelve  hours  without  bedding,  food  or  drink.  The  next 
day  they  managed  to  communicate  with  the  chapter,  but  it 
was  afraid  to  interfere  and,  after  six  days  of  this  confinement, 
the}'  were  brought  before  the  tribunal  and  informed  that  they 
had  the  city  for  a  prison,  under  pain  of  a  hundred  ducats,  and 
were  made  to  swear  to  present  themselves  whenever  summoned. 
As  they  went  out  they  saw  two  more  brought  in — the  chapel- 
master  and  a  priest.     At  last  the  chapter  plucked  up  courage 

*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  4,  n.  3,  fol.  25. — Archive 
de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  688,  fol.  289. 

*  MS.  penes  me. 


Chap.  II]  INVIOLABILITY  367 

to  address  a  memorial  to  the  king  through  the  Council  of  Aragon, 
which  added  the  suggestion  that  he  should  order  the  inquisitor- 
general  to  see  to  the  release  of  the  musicians  and  the  prevention 
of  such  extortion.  May  11th  Philip  referred  this  to  the  Suprema 
which,  after  a  month's  delay,  replied,  June  14th,  that,  desiring 
to  avoid  controversy  with  the  church  of  Saragossa,  it  had  ordered 
the  tribunal  to  pay  the  musicians  in  future,  to  release  any  that 
were  in  prison  and  to  return  whatever  fines  had  been  imposed.^ 
When  petty  tyranny  such  as  this  could  be  practised,  especially 
on  the  privileged  class  of  priests,  we  can  appreciate  the  terrorism 
surrounding  the  tribunals. 

Another  distinction  contributed  to  the  supereminence  claimed 
by  the  Inquisition — the  inviolability  which  shielded  all  who 
were  in  its  service.  From  an  early  period  the  Church  had  sought 
to  protect  its  members,  whose  profession  was  assumed  to  debar 
them  from  the  use  of  arms,  by  investing  them  with  a  sanctity 
which  should  assure  their  safety  in  an  age  of  violence.  Through- 
out the  middle  ages  no  canon  was  more  frequently  invoked  than 
Si  qvis  suadente  diabolo,  which  provided  that  whoever  struck  a 
cleric  or  monk  incurred  an  anathema  removable  only  by  personal 
appearance  before  the  pope  and  accepting  his  sentence.^  More 
than  this  was  asked  for  by  the  Inquisition,  for  the  greater  portion 
of  its  officials  were  laymen.  They  were  no  more  exposed  to 
injury  or  insult  than  those  of  the  secular  courts,  but  it  was 
assumed  that  there  was  a  pecuhar  hatred  felt  for  them  and  that 
their  functions  in  defending  the  faith  entitled  them  to  special 
security.  We  shall  see  hereafter  that  the  Inquisition  obtained 
jurisdiction  in  all  matters  connected  with  its  officials,  but  this, 
while  enabling  it  to  give  them  special  protection,  had  the  Hmita- 
tion  that  judgements  of  blood  rendered  ecclesiastics  pronouncing 
them  "irregular."  In  cases  of  heresy  this  had  long  been  evaded 
by  a  hypocritical  plea  for  mercy,  when  delivering  convicts  to 
the  secular  arm  for  execution,  but  it  was  felt  that  some  special 
faculties  were  requisite  in  dealing  with  cases  of  mere  assault  or 
homicide  and  a  motu  proprio  was  procured  from  Leo  X,  January 
28,  1515,  empowering  inquisitors  to  arrest  any  one,  even  of  the 
highest  rank,  whether  lay  or  clerical,  who  strikes,  beats,  mutilates 

»  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528,  n.  23.— Archive  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,   Libro  21,  fol.   140. 

»  Gratiani  Decreti  P.  II,  Caus.  xvii,  Q,  iv,  c.  29. 


ogg  SUPEBEMINENCE  [Book  II 

or  kills  any  minister  or  official  of  the  Inquisition  and  to  deliver 
him  to  the  secular  arm  for  punishment,  without  incurring  irregu- 
larity, even  if  it  results  in  effusion  of  blood/  The  Holy  Office 
thus  held  in  its  own  hands  the  protection  of  all  who  served  it. 

This  was  rendered  still  more  efficient  by  subsequent  papal 
action.  Irritated  at  some  resistance  offered  to  the  Roman 
Inquisition,  Pius  V  published,  April  1,  1569,  the  ferocious  bull 
Si  de  protegendis,  under  which  any  one,  of  whatever  rank,  who 
should  threaten,  strike  or  kill  an  officer  or  a  witness,  who  should 
help  a  prisoner  to  escape  or  make  way  with  any  document,  or 
should  lend  aid  or  counsel  to  such  act,  was  to  be  deUvered  to  the 
secular  judge  for  punishment  as  a  heretic— that  is  to  say,  for 
burning— including  confiscation  and  the  infamy  of  his  children.^ 
Although  this  was  intended  for  Italy,  the  Spanish  Inquisition 
speedily  assumed  the  benefit  of  it;  it  was  sent  out  October  16th 
and  it  was  annually  pubUshed  in  the  vernacular  on  Holy  Thurs- 
day.' 

Thus  all  concerned  in  the  business  of  the  Holy  Office  were 
hedged  around  with  an  inviolability  accorded  to  no  other  class 
of  the  community.  The  inquisitors  themselves  were  adcUtionally 
protected  against  responsibihty  for  their  own  malfeasance  by 
the  received  theory  that  scandal  was  more  to  be  dreaded  than 
crime— that  there  was  inherent  in  their  office  such  importance 
to  rehgion  that  anything  was  better  than  what  might  bring  that 
office  into  contempt.  Francisco  Pefia,  in  treating  of  this,  quotes 
the  warning  of  Aquinas  as  to  cardinals  and  applies  it  to  the 

'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libre  I  de  copias,  fol.  139.— Archive  de 
Alcald,  Hacienda,  Legajo  10-49. 

For  some  reason  a  similar  brief  was  obtained  from  Paul  V,  November  29,  1606. 
— Archivo  de  Alcald,  loc.  cit. 

2  BuUar.  Roman.  II,   198. 

This  was  by  no  means  allowed  to  be  a  dead  letter  in  Italy.  In  1590  we  chance 
to  hear  of  the  Inquisitor  of  Cremona  relaxing  to  the  secular  arm  three  offenders 
under  the  bull.  In  some  cases  however  of  wounding  or  threatening  witnesses, 
the  galleys  were  substituted  for  capital  punishment.  There  was,  moreover,  a 
spirit  of  conciUation  in  the  Roman  Inquisition  offering  a  marked  contrast  to  that 
of  Spain.  When,  in  1635,  at  Macerata,  some  laymen  were  arrested  for  wounding 
certain  officials  of  the  tribunal  and  a  question  arose  as  to  jurisdiction,  the  Con- 
gregation ordered  the  civil  governor  to  try  the  cases  as  its  delegate  and  not  to 
apply  the  bull  Si  de  protegendis,  as  the  wounding  had  not  arisen  out  of  hostility 
to  the  Holy  Office.— Decreta  Sacr.  Congr.  Sti  Officii,  pp.  34,  202  (R.  Archivio 
di  Stato  in  Roma,  Fondo  Camerale,  Congr.  del  S.  Offizio,  Vol.  3). 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  939,  fol.  144. 


CuAP.  II]  INVIOLABILITY  369 

punishment- of  inquisitors;  if  scandal  has  arisen,  they  may  be 
punished;  otherwise  the  danger  to  the  reputation  of  the  Holy 
Office  is  greater  than  that  of  impunity  to  the  offender/  The 
tenderness,  in  fact,  with  which  they  were  treated,  even  when 
scandal  had  arisen,  was  a  scandal  in  itself.  Thus,  when  the 
reiterated  complaints  of  Barcelona  caused  a  visitation  to  be  made 
there,  in  1567,  by  de  Soto  Salazar,  and  his  report  confirmed 
the  accusations,  showing  the  three  inquisitors  to  be  corrupt, 
extortionate  and  unjust,  the  only  penalty  imposed,  in  1568,  was 
merely  suspension  for  three  years  from  all  office  in  the  Inquisi- 
tion. Even  this  was  not  enforced,  at  least  with  regard  to  one  of 
them.  Dr.  Zurita,  for  we  chance  to  meet  him  as  inquisitor  of 
Saragossa  in  1570.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  reformed,  for  his 
transfer  thence  to  Sardinia,  the  least  desirable  of  the  tribunals, 
can  only  have  been  in  consequence  of  persistent  misconduct.^ 
The  tribunals  naturally  showed  the  same  mercy  to  their  sub- 
ordinates, whose  sole  judges  they  were,  and  this  retention  in 
office  of  those  whom  unfitness  was  proved  was  not  the  least  of 
the  burdens  with  which  the  Inquisition  afflicted  Spain. 

What  rendered  this  inviolability  more  aggravating  was  that 
it  extended  to  the  servants  and  slaves  of  all  connected  with  the 
Holy  Office.  About  1540  a  deputy  corregidor  of  Murcia,  for 
insulting  a  servant  of  the  messenger  of  the  tribunal,  was  exposed 
to  the  infamy  of  hearing  mass  as  a  penitent.^  In  1564,  we 
find  Dr.  Zurita,  on  circuit  through  his  district,  collecting  evidence 
against  Micael  Bonet,  of  Palacio  de  Vicio,  for  caning  a  servant 
boy  of  Benet  Modaguer,  who  held  some  office  in  the  Inquisition, 
and  the  case  was  sent  to  Barcelona  for  trial,  which  shows  that  it 
was  regarded  as  serious.  So,  in  1568,  for  quarrelling  with  a 
servant  of  Micer  Complada,  who  styled  himself  deputy  of  the 
abogado  fiscal  at  Tarragona,  the  Barcelona  tribunal,  without 
verifying  Complada's  claims  to  office,  threw  into  prison  Geronimo 
Zapata  and  Antonio  de  Urgel  and  condemned  Zapata  to  a  fine 
of  thirty  ducats  and  six  months'  exile  and  Urgel  to  ten  diicats 
and  three  months.'  In  Murcia,  Sebastian  Gallego,  the  servant 
of  an  inquisitor,  quarrelled  with  a  butcher  over  some  meat,  when 

1  Pesnse  Comment.  Ixi  in  Eymerici  Direct.  Inquis.  P.  m. 
»  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  20; 
Ibidem,  Libro  940,  fol.  45.— Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  P  V,  3,  n.  69. 
3  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  925,  fol.  681. 
*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  9 

24 


370  SUPEREMINENCE  [Book  II 

they  exchanged  insults.  The  secular  judge  arrested  both,  but 
the  tribunal  claimed  them,  prosecuted  the  butcher  and  banished 
him  from  the  town/  Such  cases  were  of  frequent  occurrence 
and  it  is  easy  to  conceive  how  gaUing  was  the  insolence  of  a 
despised  class  thus  enabled  to  repay  the  contempt  with  which 
it  was  habitually  treated. 

When  the  honor  of  slaves  was  thus  vincUcated  inquisitors  were 
not  apt  to  condone  any  failure,  real  or  imaginary,  in  the  respect 
which  they  held  to  be  their  due,  and  the  offender  was  made  to 
feel  the  awful  authority  which  shrouded  the  tribunal  and  its 
judges.  As  their  powers  were  largely  discretional,  with  unde- 
fined limits,  the  manner  in  which  they  were  exercised  was  some- 
times eccentric.  In  1569,  for  instance,  the  Jesuits  of  Palermo 
prepared  for  representation  in  their  church  a  tragedy  of  St. 
Catherine  and,  on  October  4th,  they  gave  a  private  rehearsal 
to  which  were  invited  the  viceroy  and  principal  dignitaries. 
The  inquisitor,  Juan  Biserra,  came  as  one  of  the  guests  and 
finding  the  door  closed  knocked  repeatedly  without  announcing 
himself  or  demanding  admittance.  The  janitor,  thinking  it  to 
be  some  unauthorized  person,  paid  no  attention  to  the  knocking 
and  Biserra  departed,  highly  incensed.  When  the  Jesuits  heard  of 
it,  the  rector  and  principal  fathers  called  on  him  to  apologize, 
but,  after  keeping  them  waiting  for  some  time  he  refused  to  see 
them.  The  public  representation  was  announced  for  October 
8th;  the  church  was  crowded  with  the  nobility  awaiting  the 
rising  of  the  curtain,  when  a  messenger  from  Biserra  notified 
the  Jesuits  that  he  forbade  the  performance,  under  pain  of 
excommunication  and  other  penalties  at  his  discretion,  until 
after  the  piece  should  have  been  examined  and  approved  by 
him.  The  audience  was  dismissed  and  the  next  day  the  MS. 
was  sent  to  Biserra  who  submitted  it  to  Dominican  censors. 
Although  they  returned  it  with  their  approval  he  discovered  in 
it  two  objectionable  points,  so  absurdly  trifling  as  to  show  that 
he  wanted  merely  to  make  a  wanton  exhibition  of  his  power. 
The  censors  replied  to  his  criticism  and  he  finally  allowed  the 
performance  to  proceed.  We  may  not  unreasonably  assume  that 
this  may  have  been  one  of  the  freaks  for  which  Biserra  was 
suspended  in  1572,  on  the  report  made  of  him  by  the  visitor 
Quintanilla.    Then,  with  customary  tenderness,  he  was  employed 


'    Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  940,  fol.   190. 


Chap.  II]  ENFORCEMENT  OF  RESPECT  37I 

in  the  responsible  post  of  visitor  at  Barcelona,  where  he  died 
soon  afterwards/ 

The  sensitiveness  to  disrespect  and  the  terrorism  which  its 
arbitrary  punishment  diffused  through  the  community  were 
well  illustrated  when,  in  1617,  Fray  Diego  Vinegas  preached 
the  Lenten  sermons  in  the  Hospital  of  N.  Senora  de  la  Gracia  of 
Saragossa.  He  was  a  distinguished  Benedictine,  who  had  held 
high  offices  in  his  Order,  and  his  eloquence  on  this  occasion 
brought  in  alms  amounting  to  eight  thousand  crowns.  On 
January  21st  the  inquisitors  sent  him  a  message  to  come  to  them 
the  next  day  at  2  p.m.,  to  which  he  rephed  in  writing  that  he 
was  indisposed  and  closely  occupied  with  his  sermons;  if  they 
wished  to  order  him  to  preach  the  Edict  of  Faith,  he  held  him- 
self already  charged  to  do  so  and  begged  them  to  excuse  his 
coming.  A  second  message  the  same  day  told  him  to  come  at 
the  same  hour  another  day,  when  he  would  be  told  what  was 
wanted  of  him,  to  which  he  answered  that  he  would  come  but 
that  if  it  was  only  to  order  him  to  preach  the  sermon  he  would 
return  at  once  to  Castile,  without  again  mounting  the  pulpit. 
Whether  anything  underlay  this  somewhat  mysterious  action 
does  not  appear;  the  significance  of  the  affair  lies  in  the  fact 
that  it  at  once  became  a  matter  of  general  pubhc  concern.  When 
that  same  night  the  governor  of  the  Hospital  heard  of  it  he 
recognized  the  injury  that  would  accrue  to  the  institution  and 
to  the  whole  city  and  forthwith  reported  it  to  the  viceroy,  who 
commissioned  the  Licentiate  Balthasar  Navarro  to  undo  the 
mischief.  The  result  of  his  labors  was  that  the  inquisitors 
declared  that  as  Fray  Vinegas  pleaded  indisposition  they  would 
excuse  him  from  preaching  the  Edict  of  Faith.  The  affair 
appeared  to  be  settled  and  Vinegas  begged  permission  to  call 
on  the  two  inquisitors,  Santos  and  Salcedo,  and  pay  them  the 
Easter  compliments.  They  graciously  acceded  and  on  Easter 
Monday  he  waited  on  them,  exculpated  himself,  and  begged 
their  pardon  for  having  been  prevented  by  indisposition  from 
preaching  the  Edict,  all  of  which  they  accepted  with  great 
courtesy.  The  community  breathed  freer,  for  some  vindication 
of  the  honor  of  the  Inquisition  had  been  expected.  The  inquis- 
itors however  had  been  consulting  the  Suprema  and  vengeance 
was  at  hand.    The  next  day,  Tuesday,  was  the  last  of  the  series 

*  Franchina,  Breve  Rapporto della  Inquisizione  di  Sicilia,  pp.  72-5,  93  (Palermo, 
1744). 


372  SUPEREMINENCE  [Book  II 

of  sermons;  Vinegas  preached  successfully  to  a  crowded  church 
when,  on  descending  from  the  pulpit,  he  was  arrested  by  an 
alguazil  of  the  Inquisition,  dragged  through  the  crowd  like  a 
heresiarch  attempting  escape,  thrown  into  a  coach  and  carried 
to  the  Aljaferia.  There  he  was  placed  on  a  bench  like  a  criminal, 
interrogated  as  one  and  then,  without  being  listened  to,  was 
sentenced  to  perpetual  deprivation  of  the  honors  of  the  Inqui- 
sition (preaching  at  autos,  the  edicts,  etc.)  and  reprimanded 
with  the  utmost  severity.  The  mark  of  infamy  thus  inflicted 
was  indelible  and  the  scandal  was  immense.  The  people  flocked 
in  crowds  to  the  viceroy  in  the  greatest  excitement  and  he  had 
nmch  ado  to  quiet  them  by  promising  that  it  should  be  reme- 
died. Vinegas  applied  for  the  reinstatement  of  his  honor  to 
the  Council  of  Aragon,  which  replied  that  it  had  no  jurisdiction; 
then  he  applied  to  the  Suprema,  which  refused  to  hear  him. 
He  sent  a  memorial  to  the  king,  who  referred  it  to  the  Council 
of  Aragon  and  he  continued  his  efforts  for  more  than  a  year 
but  it  does  not  appear  that  he  ever  obtained  relief.^ 

As  a  rule,  any  criticism  of  the  justice  of  the  Inquisition  and 
any  complaint  by  one  who  had  passed  through  its  hands  were 
offences  to  be  punished  with  more  or  less  severity.  To  this, 
however,  there  was  an  exception  in  a  case  the  singularity  of 
which  deserves  mention.  Perhaps  the  most  distinguished  Fran- 
ciscan theologian  of  his  day  was  Miguel  de  Medina.  He  fell 
under  suspicion  of  Lutheranism,  was  arrested  and  tried  and 
died  during  trial,  May  1,  1578,  in  the  secret  prison  of  Toledo 
after  four  years  of  detention.  Another  Franciscan,  Francisco 
Ortiz,  espoused  his  cause  so  zealously  that,  in  a  public  sermon 
in  1576  he  pronounced  the  trial  to  be  unjust,  for  it  was  the  work 
of  a  conspiracy  among  his  brother  frailes ;  the  arrest  was  a  mortal 
sin,  as  though  it  were  St.  Jerome  or  St.  Augustin,  and  the 
inquisitor-general  (Espinosa)  who  had  signed  the  warrant  was 
in  hell  unless  he  had  repented;  the  inquisitors  were  ashamed 
and  were  seeking  to  avert  the  disgrace  from  themselves,  when 
they  ought  to  be  punishing  the  perjury  of  those  who  had 
testified.  This  was  flat  blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Office,  and 
it  is  not  easy  to  understand  why  the  daring  fraile  escaped,  when 
tried  by  the  tribunal  of  Toledo,  with  a  reprimand  administered 
privately  in  the  audience-chamber  and  a  prohibition  to  enter 


*  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528,  n.  3. 


Chap.  II]  ENFORCEMENT  OF  RESPECT  373 

Madrid  without  permission  —  a  sentence  which  was  duly  con- 
firmed by  the  Suprema/  We  shall  see  hereafter  that  another 
Fray  Francisco  Ortiz,  for  a  similar  offence,  did  not  escape  so 
easily. 

These  were  the  defences  thrown  around  the  Inquisition  to 
secure  its  effectiveness  in  its  supreme  function  of  maintaining 
religious  unity,  and  these  were  the  efforts  which  it  made  to  secure 
the  recognition  of  the  supremacy  to  which  it  aspired.  It  was 
an  institution  suddenly  introduced  into  an  established  eccle- 
siastical and  secular  hierarchy,  which  regarded  the  intruder 
with  natural  jealousy  and  dislike  and  resented  its  manifest 
resolve  to  use  its  spiritual  authority  for  their  humiliation.  Its 
arrogant  self-assertion  led  it  into  frequent  mistakes  in  which 
even  its  royal  protectors  could  not  justify  it,  but  it  gradually 
won  its  way  under  the  Hapsburgs.  The  advent  of  the  Bourbons 
brought  into  play  a  new  theory  as  to  the  relations  between 
Church  and  State  and  the  civil  authorities  were  able  in  time 
to  vindicate  their  equality  and  independence.  We  shall  have 
the  opportunity  of  following  this  struggle,  in  which  reUgion 
was  in  no  way  concerned,  for  the  defence  of  the  faith  was  a 
pretext  under  which  the  Holy  Office  sought  to  arrogate  to  itself 
control  over  a  constantly  widening  area  of  secular  affairs,  while 
claiming  release  from  secular  obligations. 

'  Nic.  Antonii  Bibl.  nova,  II,  140. — Llorente,  Hist.  crft.  Cap.  XXIX,  Art.  2, 
n.  10.— MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  HaUe,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 


CHAPTER   III. 

PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS. 

Before  the  Revolution  introduced  the  theory  of  equality, 
class  privileges  were  the  rule.  The  public  burdens  were  eluded 
by  those  best  able  to  bear  them  and  were  accumulated  on  the 
toilers.  The  mortmain  lands  held  by  the  Church  were  exempt 
from  both  taxation  and  military  service  and,  though  Phihp  V, 
in  the  Concordat  of  1737,  obtained  the  privilege  of  taxing  such 
as  might  subsequently  be  acquired,  the  repeated  decrees  for  its 
enforcement  show  the  impossibility  of  enforcing  it.^  The  com- 
plete immunity  of  ecclesiastics  from  taxation  was  emphatically 
asserted  by  Boniface  VIII  in  the  bull  Clericis  laicos  and,  although 
this  was  revoked  by  the  Council  of  Vienne  in  1312,  care  was 
taken  to  enunciate  the  principle  as  still  in  vigor. ^  Yet  in  the 
kingdoms  of  Aragon  they  were  subject  to  all  imposts  on  sales, 
to  import  and  export  dues  and  other  local  taxation  and,  when 
resistance  was  offered  to  this,  Charles  V  procured  from  Adrian 
VI,  in  1522,  and  from  Clement  VII,  in  1524,  briefs  confirming 
their  liabihty.^  Hidalguia,  or  gentle  blood,  conferred  a  multi- 
phcity  of  privileges,  including  exemption  from  taxation,  royal 
and  local,  with  certain  exceptions  that  were  largely  evaded, 
and  the  labrador— the  peasant  or  commoner— was  cUstinctively 
known  as  a  pechero  or  tax-payer.''  That  in  such  a  social  order 
the  Inquisition  should  seek  for  its  members  all  the  exemptions 
that  it  could  grasp  was  too  natural  to  excite  surprise,  though  it 
might  occasionally  provoke  resistance. 

As  regards  freedom  from  taxation,  the  subject  is  compHcated 
by  questions  concerning  royal  and  local  imposts,  by  the  varying 
customs  in  the  different  provinces,  and  by  the  distinction  between 


*  Novis.  Recop.,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  v,  leyes  14,  15. 

*  Cap.  3  in  Sexto,  Lib.  iii.  Tit.  xxiii.— Cap.  1  Clementin.,  Lib.  iii,  Tit.  xvii. 
'  Dormer,  Anales  de  Aragon,  pp.  132,  155. 

«  For  the  numerous  and  extensive  privileges  of  the  hidalgo,  see  Benito  de 
Peiialosa  y  Mondragon,  Las  Cinco  Excelencias  del  Espanol,  fol.  88  (Barcelona, 

1629). 

(375) 


376  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

the  active  officials  of  the  tribunals,  known  as  titulados  y  asalaridos, 
and  the  more  numerous  unsalaried  ones,  who  were  only  called 
upon  occasionally  for  service,  such  as  familiars,  commissioners, 
notaries,  consultors  and  censors.  Their  rights  were  loosely 
defined  and  were  subject  to  perpetual  variation  by  conflicting 
decisions  in  the  contests  that  were  constantly  occurring  with 
the  secular  authorities,  provoked  by  habitual  antagonism  and 
the  frequent  imposition  of  new  taxes,  raising  new  questions. 
Ferdinand  wrote  sharply,  April  13,  1504,  to  the  town-council 
of  Barcelona,  when  it  attempted  to  subject  the  officials  of  the 
tribunal  to  the  burdens  borne  by  other  citizens,  in  violation  of 
the  pre-eminences  and  exemptions  of  the  Holy  Office,  and  he 
warned  them  to  desist,  in  view  of  the  jucUcial  measures  that 
would  be  taken.  Yet,  in  1508,  we  find  him  writing  still  more 
sharply  to  that  tribunal,  scolding  it  because  it  had  taken  from 
the  house  of  the  alguazil  of  the  Bailia  a  female  slave  and,  with- 
out waiting  for  formal  judgement,  had  sold  her  without  paying 
the  royal  impost  of  twenty  per  cent.,  a  cUsregard  of  the  regalias 
not  permitted  to  them.  They  had  also  issued  an  order  on  the 
custom-house  to  pass  free  of  duty  certain  aAcles  for  an  inquisi- 
tor, which  was  against  all  rule  for,  even  if  the  goods  were  needed 
for  the  support  of  the  officials,  it  was  a  matter  for  the  farmers 
of  the  revenue  to  decide,  and  the  issuing  of  such  passes  would 
be  fruitful  of  fraud  and  loss.^ 

These  instances  indicate  the  uncertainties  of  the  questions 
that  were  constantly  arising  in  the  intricate  system — or  lack 
of  system — of  Spanish  taxation.  To  follow  the  subject  in  detail 
would  be  an  endless  and  unprofitable  task.  I  have  collected 
a  considerable  number  of  more  or  less  contradictory  decisions 
of  this  early  period,  but  the  only  deductions  to  be  drawn  from 
them  are  the  indefiniteness  of  the  exemption  and  the  earnest- 
ness of  the  effort  made  to  extend  it  by  the  Inquisition.  The 
matter  evidently  was  one  in  which  there  were  no  recognized 
rules  and,  in  1568,  Philip  II  undertook  to  regulate  it,  at  least 
in  so  far  as  concerned  royal  taxation.  He  defined  for  each 
tribunal  the  officials  who  were  to  be  exempted  from  all  taxes, 
excise  and  assessments,  and  forbade  their  exaction  under  pain 
of  fifty  thousand  maravedis  and  punishment  at  the  royal  dis- 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  52. — 
Ibidem,  Libro  13,  fol.  386. 


Chap.  Ill]  TAXATION  377 

cretion,  but  this  exemption  was  granted  only  during  his  good 
pleasure,  so  that  he  retained  full  control  and  admitted  no  privi- 
lege as  inherent  in  the  Inquisition.  His  enumeration  more- 
over comprised  only  the  titulados  y  asalariados,  holding  com- 
missions from  the  Suprema  and  in  constant  service,  and  omitted 
the  familiars  and  others  who  greatly  exceeded  them  in  num- 
bers/ 

This  attempt  at  settlement  left  the  matter  still  undefined 
and  provocative  of  endless  strife.  It  said  nothing  as  to  local 
taxes;  these  and  the  royal  taxes  were  often  indistinguishable, 
or  so  combined  that  they  could  not  be  separated;  the  unsalaried 
officials  were  not  specifically  declared  to  be  taxable  and  were 
always  striving  for  exemption,  and  when,  in  the  growing  needs 
of  the  monarchy,  new  taxes  were  imposed,  there  came  ever 
fresh  struggles  conducted  with  the  customary  violence  of  the 
Inquisition.  May  10,  1632,  the  Royal  Council  earnestly  repre- 
sented to  Philip  IV  that  it  had  already  laid  before  him  certain 
excesses  of  the  inquisitors  of  Cuenca  to  which  he  had  not  seen 
fit  to  reply.  Now  the  corregidor  of  Cuenca  has  reported  other 
excesses  requiring  immediate  remedy,  for  they  have  issued  an 
order,  under  pain  of  excommunication  and  other  penalties,  that 
the  collector  of  the  excise  on  wine,  imposed  for  the  pay  of  the 
troops,  shall  not  collect  it  of  the  salaried  officials  of  .the  tribunal 
although  they  are  laymen  and  subject  to  it.  They  pretended 
that  they  were  not  liable  to  the  alcavala  (tax  on  sales)  but  they 
were  defeated  in  the  suit  on  this  before  the  Council  of  Hacienda. 
And  if  this  is  permitted  all  the  other  tribunals  will  attempt 
the  same,  and  with  their  exemption  will  come  that  of  their 
servants  and  kindred  and  connections  of  all  kinds,  with  frauds 
and  concealment  as  usual,  resulting  in  increase  of  charge  to  other 
vassals  and  damage  to  the  treasury,  for  it  seems  as  though  the 
sole  object  of  the  inquisitors  is  to  diminish  the  royal  patrimony.^ 
Similar  troubles  attended  the  levying  of  the  servicio  de  millones, 
an  exceedingly  unpopular  impost  on  wine,  meat,  vinegar  and 
other  necessaries.^ 

When,  in  1631,  the  tax  of  media  anata,  or  half  a  year's  salary 


1  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  1465,  fol.  27;  Libro  939,  fol.  144.^ 
Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  D,  118,  p.  102.— Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  45  (Bibl. 
nacional,  D,  122). 

2  Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  S,  88,  p.  102. 

3  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Libro  21,  fol.  37;  Leg.  1465,  fol.  27 


a78  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

levied  on  appointees  to  office,  was  imposed  there  was  a  discus- 
sion as  to  whether  it  was  apphcable  to  the  Inquisition.  This 
was  settled  in  the  affirmative  and  the  Suprema  made  no  objec- 
tion, for  its  collection  was  taken  from  the  Sala  de  Media 
Ahata  and  was  given  to  Gabriel  Ortiz  de  Sotomayor,  appointed 
by  Inquisitor-general  Zapata  and  when  he,  in  the  course  of  a 
few  years,  became  Bishop  of  Badajoz,  the  business  was  intrusted 
to  the  inquisitor-general  himself.  For  awhile  the  payments 
were  made  with  some  regularity,  but,  in  1650,  an  investigation 
showed  that  for  a  long  while  it  had  been  quietly  allowed  to 
drop  and,  as  it  was  in  the  hands  of  the  inquisitor-general,  there 
were  no  means  of  enforcing  an  accounting.  For  a  year  Arce  y 
Reynoso  eluded  the  efforts  of  the  Sala  de  Media  Ahata  to  obtain 
information  and  finally.  May  17,  1651,  the  king  ordered  him 
peremptorily  to  pay  his  own  media  ahata  (due  since  1643),  to 
make  the  other  officials  do  so  and  to  furnish  the  required  informa- 
tion to  the  Sala.  On  receiving  this  he  said  there  were  difficulties 
in  making  ecclesiastics  like  inquisitors  pay,  but  he  would  con- 
sult the  Suprema  and  reply  in  July.  July  passed  away  and  the 
Sala  again  applied  to  him,  when  he  replied  that,  as  concerned 
the  familiars  and  other  secular  officials,  orders  had  already  been 
given  and  collections  made,  but  as  to  clerics  there  were  scruples 
about  which  he  would  advise  with  the  king.  He  failed  to  do  so 
and  in  October  the  king  was  urged  to  repeat  his  demand  for 
immediate  payment.  The  outcome  of  the  affair  was  that  eccle- 
siastics were  exempted  and  laymen  had  to  pay,  while  familiars, 
who  had  no  salaries,  were  assessed  nine  ducats — so  Arce  y  Rey- 
noso succeeded  in  eluding  his  tax.  Collection,  moreover,  from 
the  laymen  was  not  easy  and,  January  28,  1654,  the  Suprema 
issued  general  instructions  to  deduct  it  without  exception  from 
the  salaries.  This  only  transferred  the  indebtedness  from  the 
individuals  to  the  receivers  or  treasurers  of  the  tribunals,  who 
seem  to  have  been  equally  slow  to  pay  and,  in  1655,  an  inquisi- 
tor in  each  tribunal  of  Castile  and  the  colonies  was  designated 
to  collect  the  money  from  the  treasurer  and  remit  it  at  once.* 
It  is  safe  to  assume  that  the  receipts  were  trivial  and  the 
whole  business  affords  an  illustration  of  the  methods  by  which 
the  revenues  of  Spain  were  frittered  away  before  reaching  the 

»  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libre  40,  fol.  168,  203,  212,  229,  294.— 
Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  9  (Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  D,  122).— Archivo 
hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  13,  n.  2,  fol.  42;  Legajo  299. 


Chap.  Ill]  TAXATION  379 

treasury.  Whether  productive  or  not,  however,  the  media  aiiata 
remained  until  the  end  a  permanent  charge  upon  the  lay  officials. 
In  Valencia,  in  1790,  it  had  for  ten  years  amounted  to  an  annual 
average  of  ten  libras.^ 

With  regard  to  local  taxation,  contests  were  renewed  at  every 
new  impost  with  varying  success,  and  a  single  case  will  elucidate 
the  character  of  these  struggles.  In  1645  the  Cortes  of  Valencia 
agreed  to  furnish  for  six  years  twelve  hundred  men  to  garrison 
Tortosa,  reserving  the  right  to  impose  whatever  duties  or  excise 
might  be  necessary  to  defray  the  expense.  In  order  that  the 
clergy  might  be  included  the  assent  of  Archbishop  Aliaga  was 
sought,  which  he  granted  with  difficulty  and  only  on  condition 
that,  within  eight  months,  a  confirmatory  papal  brief  should 
be  obtained,  which  was  duly  accomplished.  To  meet  the  charge 
an  excise,  known  as  the  sisa  del  corte  was  levied  on  all  goods 
cut  for  garments.  The  tribunal  refused  to  submit  to  this  and 
pointed  to  its  contributions  to  a  loan  of  twenty  thousand  ducats 
made  by  the  Inquisition  to  the  king  in  1642,  and  to  its  pay- 
ment since  1643  of  five  per  cent,  of  the  salaries  for  the  main- 
tenance of  certain  m^ounted  men.  The  city  yielded  for  awhile 
and  then  a  compromise  was  made;  the  ecclesiastics  at  the  time 
were  paying  eighteen  deniers  on  the  libra  (7^  per  cent.)  while 
the  officials  of  the  tribunal  were  to  be  taxed  only  six  deniers 
(2V  per  cent.).  To  maintain  their  principle  of  exemption,  how- 
ever, for  some  years  they  had  their  garments  made  in  the  name 
of  other  ecclesiastics  and  paid  the  eighteen  deniers,  but  in  1659 
they  grew  tired  of  this  and  paid  the  six  deniers  for  themselves, 
first  registering  a  protest  that  it  was  without  prejudice  to  their 
privileges  and  exemptions.  This  continued  until  1668,  when 
suddenly,  on  June  19th,  the  fiscal  of  the  tribunal  sunmioned 
the  collectors  of  the  sisa  del  corte  to  pass  freely,  within  twenty- 
four  hours,  the  cloth  cut  for  the  garments  of  Benito  Sanguino, 
the  alcalde  mayor,  under  pain  of  five  hundred  ducats.  On  the 
21st  the  syndics  of  the  city  and  the  collectors  interjected  an 
appeal  to  the  king,  in  spite  of  which  the  next  day  the  mandate 
was  repeated,  this  time  giving  twelve  hours  for  obedience  and 
adding  excommunication  to  the  fine.  Another  appeal  was 
interposed  and  the  regent  of  the  Audiencia  applied  for  a  com- 


*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  14,  n.  2,  fol.  28;  Cartas 
del  Consejo,  Leg.  16,  n.  9,  fol.  7. 


380  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

petencia,  or  orderly  method  of  settling  disputes,  as  provided 
in  the  Concordia,  but  notwithstanding  this  the  next  day  the 
excommunications  were  published  and  the  names  of  the  col- 
lectors were  affixed  to  the  doors  of  the  cathedral  as  under  the 
anathema  of  the  Church/  The  final  outcome  is  of  little  moment; 
the  interest  of  the  affair  lies  in  its  illustration  of  the  persistence 
of  the  Inquisition  and  the  violence  of  its  methods. 

In  this  respect  the  case  is  not  exceptional.  The  formularies 
of  the  Inquisition  contained  a  full  assortment  of  arbitrary  man- 
dates which  it  employed,  in  place  of  seeking  the  legal  courses 
prescribed  in  the  Concordias,  by  which  the  king  and  the  Cortes 
sought  to  preserve  the  peace.  One  of  these,  drawn  in  the  name 
of  the  tribunal  of  Llerena,  addressed  to  the  governor  and  magis- 
trates, recites  that  complaint  has  been  made  of  the  imposition 
on  officials  and  familiars  of  a  new  octroi  on  meat  and  proceeds 
to  assert  that,  by  immemorial  custom  and  royal  cedulas,  the 
commissioned  officials  are  exempted  from  paying  any  taxes, 
excise,  imposts  and  assessments,  whether  royal  or  local  or  other- 
wise; the  magistrates  are  commanded  within  two  hours  to  desist 
from  the  attempt,  under  pain  of  major  excommunication  and 
a  fine  of  a  hundred  thousand  maravedis  for  the  governor  or 
his  deputy  and  of  fifty  thousand  for  subordinates,  with  the 
threat,  in  case  of  disobedience,  of  prosecution  with  the  full 
rigor  of  law.  Moreover  the  secretary  or  notary  of  the  city  is 
ordered  within  the  two  hours  to  bring  to  the  tribunal  and  sur- 
render all  papers  concerning  the  assessment  on  the  officials, 
under  pain  of  excommunication  and  ten  thousand  maravedis.^ 
Such  were  the  peremptory  commands  habitually  employed, 
the  arrogance  of  which  rendered  them  especially  galling. 

Not  only  were  these  fulminations  ready  for  use  when  the  case 
occurred,  but  there  were  formulas  drawn  up  in  advance  to  pre- 
vent any  attempted  infraction  of  the  privileges  claimed  by  the 
officials.  Thus  this  same  collection  has  one  addressed  to  the 
corregidor  and  magistrates  of  a  town  where  a  fair  is  to  be  held, 
reciting  that  an  official  of  the  tribunal  proposes  to  send  thither 
a  certain  number  of  cattle  bearing  his  brand,  which  he  swears 
to  be  of  his  own  raising  and,  as  he  is  exempt  from  paying  alcavala, 
tolls,   ferriages,   royal  servicio   and  all   other  assessments  and 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  1,  fol.  11,  222. — 
Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  D,  118,  n.  2,  fol.  17. 
^  Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  44  (Bibl.  nacional,  D,  122). 


Chap.  Ill]  TAXATION  381 

dues  and,  as  he  fears  that  there  may  be  an  attempt  to  impose 
them,  therefore  all  officials  and  collectors  are  ordered,  under 
pain  of  major  excommunication  and  two  hundred  ducats,  to 
abstain  from  all  such  attempts,  with  threats  of  further  punish- 
ment in  case  of  disobecUence.^  The  enormous  advantage  which 
the  official  thus  possessed  is  plain,  as  well  as  the  door  which  it 
opened  to  fraud.  That  the  claim  was  groundless  appears  by  a 
memorial  presented  to  the  Suprema  in  1623,  in  response  to  a  call 
by  Inquisitor-general  Pacheco  on  his  colleagues  for  suggestions 
as  to  the  better  government  and  improvement  of  the  Inquisition 
— a  remarkable  paper  to  which  reference  will  frequently  be 
made  hereafter.  On  this  point  it  states  that,  in  some  tribunals, 
the  officials  are  exempted  from  paying  the  alcavala  on  the  pro- 
ducts of  their  estates,  while  in  others  they  are  not.  In  some, 
a  portion  of  the  officials  have  dexterously  secured  exemption, 
while  others  have  been  compelled  to  pay,  by  judicial  decision, 
as  there  is  no  basis  for  such  claims.  If  there  is  no  right  or  privi- 
lege of  exemption,  it  is  not  seen  how  the  officials  can  conscien- 
tiously escape  payment,  or  how  the  inquisitors  can  defend  them 
in  evading  it,  besides  the  numerous  suits  thence  arising  which 
occupy  the  time  of  the  tribunals.  To  cure  this  it  is  suggested 
that  the  king  grant  exemptions  to  all,  for  there  are  not  more 
than  two  or  three  in  each  tribunal  to  be  thus  benefited.^  This 
suggestion  was  not  adopted,  but  the  claim  was  persisted  in 
with  its  perpetual  exasperation  and  multiplicity  of  Htigation. 
The  large  numbers  of  the  unsalaried  officials,  especially  the 
famihars,  rendered  the  question  of  their  exemption  of  con- 
siderably greater  importance.  They  had  no  claim  to  it,  but 
they  were  persistently  endeavoring  to  establish  the  right  and 
for  the  most  part  they  were  supported  by  the  tribunals  in  the 
customary  arbitrary  fashion.  In  the  futile  Concordia  of  Cata- 
lonia in  1599,  it  was  provided  that  levies  and  executions  for 
all  taxes  and  imposts  could  be  made  on  famihars  and  com- 
missioners by  the  ordinary  officers  of  justice.  In  the  memorial 
to  Clement  VIII  asking  for  the  disallowance  of  this  Concordia, 
the  Suprema  proved  learnedly,  by  a  series  of  canons  from  the 
fourth  Council  of  Lateran  down,  that  the  cruce-signati  (whom 
it  claimed  to  correspond  with  the  modern  famihars)  were  exempt. 


'  Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  45  (loc.  cit.). 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  926,  fol.  26. 


382  PBIVILEOES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

It  even  had  the  audacity  to  cite  the  Concordia  of  1514,  which 
in  reahty  denied  their  exemption,  and  it  assumed  with  equal 
untruth  that  this  was  the  universal  custom  in  Spain/  Yet,  in  a 
consulta  of  December  30,  1633,  the  Suprema  tacitly  excluded 
the  unsalaried  officials  when  it  argued  that  there  were  not, 
exclusive  of  ecclesiastics,  more  than  two  hundred  officials  in 
Spain  entitled  to   the   exemption.^ 

Still,  the  Inquisition  fought  the  battle  for  the  unsalaried 
officials  with  as  much  vigor  as  for  the  salaried.  In  1634  the 
levying  of  a  few  reales  on  a  f amihar  of  Vicalvero,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  voyage  to  Barcelona  of  the  Infante  Fernando,  was  re- 
sisted with  such  Adolence  by  the  tribunal  of  Toledo,  that  finally 
the  king  had  to  intervene,  resulting  in  the  banishment  and 
deprival  of  temporalities  of  a  clerical  official  and  the  summon- 
ing to  court  of  the  senior  inquisitor.^  In  1636,  Philip  IV,  to 
meet  the  extravagant  outlays  on  the  palace  of  Buen  Retiro, 
levied  a  special  tax  on  all  the  towns  of  the  district  of  Madrid. 
In  Vallecas  the  quota  was  assessed  on  the  inhabitants,  among 
whom  was  a  familiar  who  refused  to  pay,  when  the  local  alcaldes 
levied  upon  his  property.  He  appealed  to  the  Suprema  which 
referred  the  matter  to  the  tribunal  of  Toledo  and  it  arrested 
the  alcaldes  and  condemned  them  in  heavy  penalties.  Then 
the  Alcaldes  de  Casa  y  Corte,  the  highest  criminal  court,  inter- 
vened and  arrested  the  familiar,  whereupon  the  Suprema  twice 
sent  to  the  Sola  de  los  Alcaldes,  declaring  them  to  be  excom- 
municated, but  the  bearer  of  the  censure  was  refused  audience. 
On  this  the  Suprema,  with  the  assent  of  the  Council  of  Castile, 
sent  a  cleric  to  arrest  the  alcaldes  and  convey  them  out  of  the 
kingdom,  and  on  March  12th,  in  all  the  churches  of  Madrid, 
they  were  published  as  excommunicate  and  subject  to  all  the 
penalties  of  the  bull  in  Ccena  Domini.*  What  was  the  outcome 
of  this  the  chronicler  fails  to  inform  us,  but  the  Council  of  Castile 
took  a  different  view  of  the  question  when,  in  1639,  one  of  its 
members,  Don  Antonio  Valdes,  who  had  been  sent  to  Extre- 
madura  as  commissioner  to  raise  troops,  was  publicly  excom- 
municated by  the  tribunal  of  Llerena  because,  in  assessing  con- 


*  Constitutions  del  Cort  de  1599,  n.  51  (Barcelona,  1603,  fol.  x^di). — Archive 
de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  5. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  32,  fol.  110. 
'  Consulta  magna  (Bibl.  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  Q,  4). 

*  Ant.  Rodriguez  Villa,  La  Corte  y  Monarquia  de  Espana,  p.  16. 


Chap.  Ill]  TAXATION  383 

tributions  for  that  purpose,  he  had  not  exempted  its  officials 
and  familiars.  The  Council  thereupon  appealed  to  Philip,  who 
ordered  the  decree  expunged  from  the  records  and  that  a  copy 
of  the  royal  order  should  be  posted  in  the  secretariate  of  the 
tribunal/ 

Yet  it  was  about  this  time  that  the  claim  in  behalf  of  un- 
salaried officials  seems  to  have  been  abandoned,  for,  in  1636, 
1643  and  1644  the  Suprema  issued  repeated  injunctions  that 
in  the  existing  distress  the  royal  imposts  and  taxes  must  be  paid. 
In  1646  it  ordered  the  tribunal  of  Valencia  not  to  defend  two 
familiars  in  resisting  payment  and  in  the  same  year  the  Cortes 
of  Aragon  gained  a  victory  which  subjected  them  to  all  local 
charges.^ 

With  the  advent  of  the  Bourbons  the  salaried  officials  found 
a  change  in  this  as  in  so  much  else.  In  the  financial  exigencies 
of  the  War  of  Succession  they  were  subjected  to  repeated  levies. 
Philip  V  called  upon  them  for  five  per  cent,  of  their  salaries  and 
then  for  ten  per  cent,  to  which  they  were  forced  to  submit. 
In  1712  a  general  tax  was  laid  of  a  doubloon  per  hearth,  which 
was  assessed  in  each  community  according  to  the  wealth  of  the 
individual.  There  were  no  exemptions  and  appeals  were  heard 
only  by  the  provincial  superintendents  of  the  revenue.  The 
sole  concession  obtained  by  the  Suprema  was  that,  where  officials 
of  the  Inquisition  were  concerned,  the  local  tribunal  could  name 
an  assessor  to  sit  with  the  superintendent  and  it  warned  the 
tribunals  that  any  interference  with  the  collection  would  be 
repressed  with  the  utmost  severity.^  Salaries,  however,  were 
held  to  be  subject  only  to  demands  from  the  crown  for,  when 
Saragossa  in  1727  endeavored  to  include  them  in  an  assessment 
for  local  taxation,  Phifip,  in  response  to  an  appeal  from  the 
Suprema,  decided  that  those  of  the  Inquisition,  in  common  with 
other  tribunals,  should  be  exempt,  but  that  real  and  personal 
property,  including  trade,  belonging  to  officials,  should  be  held 
liable  to  the  tax.* 

»  Consulta  Magna  of  1696  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Q,  4). 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  9,  n.  3,  fol.  78. — MSS. 
of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  21Sb,  p.  222.— Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118, 
fol.  122. 

^  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  3,  fol,  71,  76,  101,  109, 
111,  121,  123,  124,  125,  188,  213;  Leg.  13,  n.  2,  fol.  71. 

*  Ibidem,  I^eg.  14,  n.  1,  fol.  148. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro 
27,  fol.  85. 


384  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

Towards  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  various  docu- 
ments show  that  all  ideas  of  resistance  and  all  pleas  of  exemption 
had  been  abandoned.  The  Holy  Ofhce  submitted  to  ordinary 
and  extraordinary  exactions  and  the  Suprema  warned  the 
tribunals  that  the  assessments  were  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the 
royal  officers  and  that  it  had  no  cognizance  of  the  matter.  The 
calls  were  frequent  and  heavy,  as  when,  in  1794,  four  per  cent, 
was  levied  on  all  salaries  of  over  eight  hundred  ducats,  and 
three  months  later  a  demand  was  made  of  one-third  of  the 
fruits  of  all  benefices  and  prebends,  which  was  meekly  submitted 
to  and  statements  were  obediently  rendered.^  Under  the  Restora- 
tion, the  Inquisition  was  less  tractable.  In  1818  an  income- 
tax  was  levied  and  was  imposed  on  all  salaries,  including  those 
of  the  Suprema,  which  at  once  prepared  for  resistance.  There 
seems  to  have  been  a  prolonged  struggle  with  a  successful  result 
for,  on  November  17th,  it  issued  a  circular  enclosing  a  royal 
order  which  conceded  exemption.^ 

The  exemption  from  taxation,  which  included  import  and 
export  dues  or  merchandise  and  provisions  required  for  officials 
and  prisoners,  led  to  the  claim  of  other  privileges  and  to  not  a 
few  abuses.  It  was  not  confined  to  sea-ports  and  frontier  towns, 
for  the  jealous  particularism  of  the  kingdoms,  dynastically 
united,  kept  up  their  antagonistic  poUcy  towards  each  other 
and  intercourse  between  them  was  subjected  to  regulations 
similar  to  those  of  foreign  trade.  The  exemption  from  these, 
as  well  as  from  the  octroi  duties  of  the  towns,  was  a  most  im- 
portant privilege,  capable  of  being  turned  to  account  in  many 
ways  besides  diminishing   the  expenses  of   the  officials. 

We  have  seen  that  Ferdinand,  in  1508,  prohibited  the  issue 
of  orders  to  pass  goods  free,  but  nevertheless  it  continued. 
When,  in  1540,  Bias  Ortiz  went  to  take  possession  of  his  office 
as  inquisitor  of  Valencia,  the  Suprema  furnished  him  with  a 
pass  addressed  to  all  customs  officials  permitting  him  to  cross 
the  frontiers  with  three  horses  and  four  pack-mules;  he  could 
be  required  to  swear  that  what  he  carried  was  his  private 
property  and  was  not  for  sale,  but  all  further  interference  was 

*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  16,  n.  6,  fol.  10,  19,  38; 
Leg.  4,  n.  3,  fol.  103,  115,  142,  166,  311. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  559. — Archive  de  Sevilla,  Seccien 
primera,  Carpeta  58,  n.  454  (Sevilla,  1860). 


Chap.  Ill]  CUSTOMS  DUTIES  385 

forbidden  under  pain  of  excommunication  and  a  hundred  ducats.^ 
It  was  not  only  on  such  occasions,  however,  that  the  custom- 
houses were  thus  eluded.  Before  the  introduction  of  regular 
posts,  the  constant  communications  between  the  tribunals 
and  with  the  Suprema  were  carried  by  couriers  or  by  muleteers, 
and  the  mysterious  secrecy  which  shrouded  all  the  operations 
of  the  Holy  Office  furnished  an  excuse  for  preventing  any  risk 
that  these  sacred  packages  should  be  examined.  All  bearers 
of  letters  therefore,  even  when  they  had  loaded  mules,  were 
furnished  with  passes  forbidding,  under  excommunication  and 
fine,  any  unpacking  or  investigation  of  what  they  carried.^ 
The  facilities  thus  offered  for  contraband  trade  are  obvious 
and  their  value  can  only  be  appreciated  through  a  knowledge 
of  the  elaborate  system  of  import  and  export  duties  and  pro- 
hibitions of  import  and  export  which  characterize  the  pohcy 
of  the  period.^  Complaints  were  fruitless,  for  when  the  Coun- 
cil of  Hacienda  issued  letters  against  certain  familiars  in  the 
Canaries,  detected  in  importing  prohibited  goods,  Philip  II, 
February  11,  1593,  ordered  the  letters  to  be  recalled  and  that 
no  more  should  be  issued.* 

There  were  few  things  concerning  which  there  was  more 
jealousy  than  the  transfer  of  grain  from  one  Spanish  kingdom 
to  another,  and  when  it  was  permitted  there  were  duties,  either 
import  or  export  or  perhaps  both.  Deficient  harvests,  in  one 
province  or  another,  were  not  infrequent  and  the  tribunals  were 
constantly  seeking  special  reUef  by  obtaining  permits  to  violate 
the  laws,  or  by  violating  the  laws  without  permits.  Many 
instances  of  this  could  be  cited,  but  it  will  suffice  to  recount 
the  experience  of  the  Valencia  tribunal  in  endeavoring  to  obtain 
wheat  from  Aragon.  For  this  it  had  special  facihties,  for  the 
Aragonese  districts  of  Teruel  and  Albarracin  were  subject  to 
it,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  Aragon  was  especially  firm  in  pro- 
hibiting the  exportation  of  wheat.  In  1522  the  tribunal  under- 
took to  bring  some  wheat  from  Aragon  and  threatened  the 
frontier  officials  with  excommunication  if  they  should  interfere. 
In  spite  of  this  they  detained  it,  when  the  inquisitor  published 

»  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  109. 
•■«  Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  77  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  122).— Archive  de  Siman- 
cas, Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Legajo  17,  fol.  20. 
»  See  the  Libre  dels  quatre  Senyals,  Barcelona,  1634. 
*  Portocarrero,  o-p.  cit.,  I  57. 

25 


386 


PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 


the  censures  and  imprisoned  a  guard  whom  he  caught,  where- 
upon the  Aragonese  Diputados  remonstrated,  saying  that  if  the 
emperor  or  pope  wanted  wheat  from  Aragon  he  apphed  for  a 
licence,  and  begging  the  inquisitor  to  keep  within  his  juris- 
diction and  release  the  guard.  Then  an  accommodation  was 
reached  and  the  tribunal  was  permitted  to  bring  in  thirty  cahizes 
(about  one  hundred  bushels),  on  condition  of  removing  any 
excommunication  that  might  exist,  but  it  repudiated  its  side 
of  the  agreement  and  sunmioned  the  officials  to  appear  and 
receive  penance.  This  exhausted  the  patience  of  the  Diputados; 
they  ordered  the  wheat  to  be  stopped  or,  if  it  had  gone  forward, 
to  be  followed  and  captured  with  the  mules  bearing  it;  the 
inquisitor  might  do  what  he  pleased,  but  they  would  employ 
all  the  forces  of  the  kingdom  and  enforce  respect  for  the  laws. 
The  position  in  which  the  inquisitor  had  placed  himself  was 
so  untenable  that  the  inquisitor-general  issued  an  order  for- 
bidding tribunals  to  take  anything  out  of  Aragon  in  violation 
of  the  prohibitions.^ 

The  effect  of  this  rebuff  was  evanescent.  The  tribunal  per- 
sisted and  by  false  pretences  estabhshed  a  claim  which,  in  1591, 
the  Suprema  warned  it  to  use  with  moderation  as  the  Council  of 
Arao-on  was  making  complaint.  As  usual  no  attention  was  paid 
to  this  and,  in  1597,  Phihp  II  was  compelled  to  interfere  because 
the  tribunal  was  issuing  to  excess  letters  authorizing  the  export 
of  wheat  from  Teruel— an  abuse  which  was  doubtless  abun- 
dantly profitable.''  If  this  brought  any  amendment  it  was  tran- 
sient. On  June  16,  1606,  the  Diputados  represented  to  the 
tribunal  that  they  were  bound  by  their  oaths  of  office,  under 
pain  of  excommunication,  to  enforce  the  laws  prohibiting  the 
export  of  wheat;  that,  in  spite  of  these  laws,  large  quantities 
were  carried  to  Valencia,  to  the  destruction  and  total  ruin  of 
the  land,  by  individuals  armed  with  hcences  issued  by  the  tri- 
bunal, wherefore  they  prayed  that  no  more  licences  be  issued. 
No  attention  was  paid  to  this  and  on  January  8,  1607,  they  wrote 
again,  stating  that  the  abuse  was  increasing  and  that  they  must 
appeal  to  the  king  and  the  Suprema  for  its  suppression.  This 
brought  an  answer  to  the  effect  that  the  tribunal  was  more  mod- 
erate" than  it  had  previously  been  and  would  continue  to  be  so 

*  Sayas,  Anales  de  Aragon,  cap.  85,  p.  567. 

2  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  5,  n.  1,  fol.  298,  313, 
339,  405. — Portocarrero,  op.  cit.,  ?  58. 


Chap.  Ill]  IMPORTATION  OF   WHEAT  387 

as  it  would  find  convenient,  without  prejudice  to  the  rights  con- 
ceded to  it  by  the  royal  cedulas  and,  as  it  was  occupied  in  the 
service  of  God,  it  could  reasonably  exercise  those  rights.     The 
asserted  rights  under  which  it  had  so  long  nulhfied  the  laws  of 
Aragon  were  a  conscious  fraud  for,  when  it  complained  to  the 
Suprema  of  the  interference   of   the  Diputados  with   its  imme- 
morial privilege  and  enclosed  the  royal  cedula  conferring  it,  the 
Suprema  pointed  out  that  this  referred  only  to  Castile  and  not 
to  Aragon  ;  the  complaints  of  the  Diputados  had  been  listened  to 
and  all  that  could  be  done  was  to  invoke  the  good  offices  of  the 
Saragossa  tribunal  to  obtain  permission  to  get  fifteen  hundred 
bushels  per  annum.     The  Saragossa  inquisitors  willingly  lent  their 
aid,   but    in    vain.     They  wrote,  June   6,   1608,   that   they  had 
brought  to  bear  all  their  influence  on  the  Diputados  who  declared 
that  the  fuero  prohibiting  the  export  of  grain  was  too  strict  for 
them  to  violate  it.     A  correspondence  ensued  with  the  Suprema 
which  ordered  the  tribunal,  February  8,  1610,  to  abstain,  as  pre- 
viously ordered,   but   if,   in   any  year,    there    should    be    special 
necessity,  it  might  report  the  quantity  required  when  instruc- 
tions would  be  given.     This  imposed  silence  on  it  until   1618, 
when  another  attempt  was  made  to  overcome  the  obstinacy  of 
the   Diputados ;    it  had  abstained,   the   tribunal   said,   for   some 
years  from  issuing  licences,  in  consequence  of  the  great  abuses 
and  excesses  of  those  to  whom  they  were  granted,  but  now  the 
sterility  of  the  land  causes  great  inconveniences  and  it  asks  that 
the  fruits  of  its  prebends  in  Aragon  and  its  rents  be  invested  in 
wheat  allowed  to  be  exported.     The  Diputados  however  wisely 
refused  to  open  the  door  ;  the  law  to  which  they  had  sworn  im- 
posed heavy   penalties   for  its  infraction    and    they  were    com- 
pelled to  refuse.     This  was  probably  effectual,  as  far  as  concerned 
Aragon,  for  we  happen  to  find  the  tribunal,  in   1631,  obtaining 
from  the  king  hcence  to  import  two  hundred  and  fifty  bushels 
from  Castile.^ 

This  narrative  is  instructive  in  more  ways  than  one.  The  pre- 
tence of  necessity  in  the  service  of  God  was  as  fraudulent  as  the 
claims  put  forward.  The  whole  business  was  purely  speculative 
and  the  licences  were  doubtless  sold  to  the  highest  bidder  through 
all  these  years.  The  Valencian  tribunal  was  at  no  time  in  need 
of  wheat  from  Aragon  or  Castile,  for  it  had  ample  privileges  at 

»  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  688,  fol.  66.— Archive  hist,  nacional, 
Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  6,  fol.  634 ;  Leg.  8,  n.  2,  fol.  73. 


388  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

home  for  all  its  wants  and  it  was  working  those  local  privileges 
for  a  profit  to  some  one.  Among  other  pubhc-spirited  acts  of 
Ximenes  was  the  founding,  in  1512,  of  an  alhondiga,  or  public 
granary,  in  Toledo  so  that,  as  we  are  told  in  1569,  in  times  of 
scarcity  the  citizens  could  procure  supplies  at  moderate  prices/ 
It  was  probably  owing  to  this  that  other  cities,  including 
Valencia,  formed  establishments  of  the  kind,  monopolizing  the 
traffic  in  wheat,  to  which  the  citizens  resorted  day  by  day  for 
their  provision.  When  a  loss  occurred  in  the  business,  from  a 
surplus  over  the  demand  or  from  spoiling  of  the  grain,  it  was 
assessed  upon  the  citizens,  under  the  name  of  paii  asegurado, 
but,  in  1530,  the  magistrates  relieved  the  officials  of  the  tribunal 
from  sharing  this  burden  and  the  exemption  is  enumerated,  in 
1707,  as  still  among  its  privileges.^  Another  privilege,  which  it 
shared  with  the  viceroy  and  the  archbishop,  was  that  the  baker 
who  served  it  was  the  second  one  allowed  every  morning  to  enter 
the  granary  and  select  a  sack  of  wheat  (trigo  fuerte)  of  five  and  a 
half  bushels  and  every  week  a  cahiz  (3V  bushels)  of  trigo  candeal, 
without  payment  save  a  small  tax  known  as  murs  y  vails — evi- 
dently for  the  maintenance  of  the  city  defences.  This  he  baked 
and  distributed  the  bread  among  the  officials  and  to  the  prison, 
in  allotted  portions,  and  what  was  over  he  sold — showing  that 
the  tribunal  not  only  got  its  wheat  gratuitously  but  more  than 
it  needed,  to  somebody's  profit.  The  amount  must  have  been 
considerable,  for  the  bakers  complained  of  the  unfair  competition 
of  the  favored  baker  and,  in  1609,  the  city  endeavored  to  put  an 
end  to  the  abuse,  but  without  success.  The  matter  slumbered 
until  1627,  when  the  city  obtained  a  royal  cedula  abolishing  the 
privilege  of  taking  the  wheat,  but  obedience  to  this  was  refused 
because  it  had  been  issued  without  preliminary  notice  to  the 
other  side  and  without  a  junta  or  conference  between  the  Suprema 
and  the  Council  of  Aragon.  Then  the  city  ordered  the  baker  no 
longer  to  go  to  the  granary  for  wheat  and  the  aggrieved  Suprema 
complained  loudly  to  the  king,  urging  him  to  consider  the  ser- 
vices to  God  and  the  tonsure  of  the  inquisitors  and  not  to  allow 


'  Gomesii  de  Rebus  gestis  a  Fr.  Ximenio,  Lib.  V,  fol.  140. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  688,  fol.  529. — Archivo  hist,  nacional, 
Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  18. 

There  was  a  similar  arrangement  in  Barcelona  and,  in  1532,  the  Suprema  orders 
the  inquisitors  not  to  allow  familiars  to  be  compelled  to  pay  this  assessment. — 
Archivo  de  Simancas,  Libro  77,  fol.  44. 


Chap.  Ill]  EVASION  OF  OCTROI  DUTIES  389 

these  holy  labors  to  be  interrupted  by  the  necessity  of  going  per- 
sonally to  the  granary.  To  this  Philip  replied  by  ordering  the 
fueros  to  be  observed,  which  was  virtually  a  confirmation  of  his 
cedula,  but  this  seems  to  have  been  similarly  disregarded,  for,  in 
1628,  we  find  the  city  again  endeavoring  to  put  an  end  to  the 
collateral  abuse  of  the  sale  of  the  surplus  bread  and  the  tribunal 
busily  engaged  in  gathering  testimony  to  prove  that  this  had 
publicl}^  been  the  custom  from  time  immemorial.  In  proving 
this,  however,  it  also  proved  unconsciously  how  fraudulent  had 
been  the  claim  that  it  had  been  in  need  of  wheat  from  Aragon.^ 
This  commercial  development  of  the  Inquisition  led  it  to 
utilize  its  exemption  from  taxation  and  octroi  duties  by  opening 
shops  for  the  necessaries  of  Hfe,  causing  violent  quarrels  with 
the  cities  whose  revenues  were  impaired  and  whose  laws  were 
ostentatiously  disregarded.  Among  a  number  of  cases  of  this 
in  the  records,  a  series  of  occurrences  in  Saragossa  will  illustrate 
this  phase  of  the  activity  of  the  Holy  Office.  A  large  part  of 
the  local  revenues  of  the  city  was  derived  from  a  monopoly  of 
wine,  meal  and  provisions  and  no  citizen  was  allowed  to  bring 
these  articles  within  the  gates.  The  Aljaferia,  occupied  by  the 
trbunal,  was  situated  a  few  hundred  feet  beyond  the  walls;  the 
inquisitors  assumed  that  they  were  not  bound  by  the  municipal 
regulations;  they  introduced  what  they  pleased  into  the  town 
and  the  authorities  complained  that  they  maintained  in  the 
Aljaferia  a  public  meat-market,  a  tavern  and  a  shop  where 
citizens  could  purchase  freely  to  the  infinite  damage  of  the 
public  revenues.  The  Cortes  of  1626  demanded  that  affairs 
should  be  reduced  to  what  they  had  been  prior  to  the  troubles  of 
1591,  when  the  Aljaferia  was  garrisoned  with  soldiers,  giving 
rise  to  profitable  trade,  but  the  Suprema  prevented  the  royal 
confirmation  of  the  acts  of  the  Cortes  and  the  matter  was  left 
open.  This  led  to  troubles  which  came  to  a  head,  September 
21,  1626,  when  a  load  of  wine  for  the  tribunal  on  entering  the 
city  was  seized  under  the  law  by  the  guard  and  taken  to  the  house 
of  one  of  the  jurados  or  town-councillors.  At  once  the  inquisi- 
tors issued  letters  demanding  its  release  under  pain  of  excom- 
munication and  a  thousand  ducats.  The  jurados  lost  no  time 
in  forming  the  competencia,  which,  in  accordance  with  the  exist- 
ing  Concordia,   was   the   method   provided   for   deciding   such 

»  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  19,  fol.  289;  Libro  688,  fol.  66,  255. 
— Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  6,  fol.  199. 


390  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

contests,  but  the  inquisitors  refused  to  join  in  it,  asserting  that 
there  could  be  no  competencia,  as  it  was  a  matter  of  faith  and 
impeding  the  Inquisition  in  the  exercise  of  its  functions.  They 
arrested  and  imprisoned  one  of  the  guards,  notwithstanding  that 
he  had  letters  of  manifestacion  from  the  court  of  the  Justicia  of 
Aragon — a  species  of  habeas  corpus  of  the  highest  privilege  in 
Aragon,  which  was  traditionally  venerated  as  the  palladium  of 
popular  liberty — and  the  next  day  they  seized  three  more  who 
were  likewise  manifestados.  The  incensed  magistrates  applied 
to  the  Justicia  and  to  the  Diputados,  to  release  by  force  the 
prisoners  from  the  Aljaferia  and  there  was  prospect  of  serious 
disorder.  The  Governor  of  Aragon,  however  succeeded  in  getting 
himself  accepted  as  umpire  by  both  sides  and  temporarily  quieted 
them  by  the  compromise  that  the  wagon,  mules  and  wine  should 
be  delivered  to  him,  that  the  prisoners  should  be  surrendered 
through  him  to  the  city  and  that  the  comminatory  letters  should 
be  withdrawn,  all  this  being  without  prejudice  to  either  party. 
He  wrote  earnestly  to  the  king,  pointing  out  the  imminent  danger 
of  an  outbreak  and  the  necessity  of  a  decision  that  should  avert 
such  perils  for  the  future;  if  the  assumption  that  such  questions 
were  matters  of  faith  were  admitted,  the  inquisitors  could  refuse 
all  competencias,  which  would  annul  the  Concordia  and  destroy 
the  royal  jurisdiction.  The  city  also  addressed  him,  saying  that 
the  inquisitors  had  refused  to  abstain  from  further  action  pend- 
ing his  decision  and  if  these  pretensions  were  admitted  they  would 
be  unable  to  pay  him  the  servicio  which  had  been  granted.^ 

This  resulted  in  a  compromise,  agreed  upon  between  the 
Suprema  and  the  Council  of  Aragon,  under  which  the  city  obli- 
gated itself  to  supply  the  tribunal  with  meat,  wine  and  ice.  It 
was  impossible  however  to  compel  the  Inquisition  to  observe 
compacts.  Fresh  complaints  arose,  the  nature  of  which  is  indi- 
cated by  a  decree  of  Philip  IV,  June  17,  1630,  requiring  the 
Suprema  to  order  the  inquisitors  to  keep  to  the  agreement  and 
not  to  sell  any  portion  of  the  provisions  furnished  and  further  to 
stop  the  trade  carried  on  in  some  little  houses  in  the  Aljaferia 
where  the  municipal  supervisors  could  not  inspect  them.  This 
resulted  in  a  fresh  agreement  of  December  7,  1631,  under  which 
the  city  bought  for  three  thousand  crowns  the  casa  de  penitencia, 
or  prison  for  penitents,  and  engaged  to  maintain  in  it  shops  for 

'  Fueros  y  Actos  de  Corte  in  Barbastro  y  Calatayud,  ano  de  1626  (Zaragoza, 
1627,  p.  20). — Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528,  n.  3. 


Chap.  Ill]  SALT  AND  BAKE-OVEN  391 

the  sale  of  meat  and  ice  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Aljaferia  at 
the  prices  current  in  the  town.^ 

Probably  this  quieted  the  matter,  but  before  long  the  irre- 
pressible inquisitors  started  another  disturbance.  The  salt-works 
of  RemoHnos  and  el  Castellon  belonged  to  the  royal  patrimony 
and  were  farmed  out  under  condition  that  no  other  salt  should 
be  sold  or  used  in  Saragossa  and  some  other  places  under  heavy 
fines.  To  enforce  this  there  were  commissioners  empowered  to 
investigate  all  suspected  places,  even  churches  not  being  exempt. 
In  1640  a  party  in  the  city  was  found  to  be  selling  salt  and  con- 
fessed that  he  obtained  it  from  the  gardener  of  the  Aljaferia. 
The  commissioner,  Baltasar  Peralta,  went  there  with  a  scrivener 
and  in  the  gardener's  cottage  they  found  two  sacks,  one  empty, 
the  other  nearly  full  of  salt,  with  a  half-peck  measure.  They 
announced  the  penalty  to  the  gardener's  wife  and  proceeded  to 
enforce  it  in  the  customary  manner  by  seizing  pledges — in  the 
present  case,  three  horses.  The  inquisitor,  who  had  doubtless 
been  sent  for,  came  as  they  were  leading  the  horses  away,  forced 
the  surrender  of  the  horses  and  salt  and  told  them  that  they 
should  deem  themselves  lucky  if  they  were  not  thrown  in  prison. 
Thereupon  the  royal  advocate-fiscal  of  Aragon,  Adrian  de  Sada, 
reported  the  case  to  the  king,  adding  that  it  was  learned  that 
the  coachman  of  one  of  the  inquisitors  was  selling  salt  from  the 
salt-works  of  Sobradiel.  He  pointed  out  that,  if  the  servants  of 
the  Inquisition  could  sell  salt  freely  and  the  royal  officials  be 
deterred  by  threats  from  investigation,  the  revenue  would  be 
seriously  impaired,  for  no  one  would  venture  to  farm  the  salt- 
works, and  he  asked  for  instructions  before  resorting  to  pro- 
ceedings which  might  disturb  the  public  peace,  as  had  happened 
on  previous  occasions.  The  matter  was  referred  to  the  Council 
of  Aragon,  which  advised  the  king  to  issue  imperative  commands 
that  the  inquisitors  should  not  obstruct  the  detection  and  punish- 
ment of  frauds,  for  their  cognizance  in  no  way  pertained  to  the 
Holy  Office.' 

The  Saragossa  tribunal  had  a  still  more  prolonged  and  bitter 
dispute  with  the  city  over  the  bake-oven  of  the  Aljaferia.  This 
belonged  to  the  crown  and,  at  some  time  prior  to  1630,  Philip 
IV  made  it  over  to  the  tribunal  which  was  pleading  poverty. 
Its  use  of  the  privilege  soon  brought  it  into  conflict  with  the  city, 

»  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  20,  fol.  54;  Libro  62,  fol.  457. 
*  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528,  n.  3. 


392  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

but  a  complicated  arrangement  respecting  it  was  included  in 
the  agreement  of  December  7,  1631,  requiring  the  baker  to 
purchase  at  least  seventy  bushels  of  wheat  per  month  from  the 
public  granary,  with  certain  restrictions  as  to  the  places  whence  he 
could  procure  further  supplies.  In  1649  we  chance  to  learn  that 
the  oven  was  farmed  out  for  six  thousand  reales  per  annum  and, 
in  1663,  a  lively  conflict  arose  because  the  tribunal  had  granted 
a  lease  which  was  not  subject  to  the  restrictions  of  1631.  Then 
again,  in  1690,  the  trouble  broke  out  afresh,  each  side  accusing 
the  other  of  violating  the  agreement.  All  the  authorities,  from  the 
king  and  viceroy  down,  were  invoked  to  settle  it;  there  were  fears 
of  violence  but.  May  1, 1691,  the  tribunal  reported  to  the  Suprema 
that  a  compromise  had  been  reached  on  satisfactory  terms.^ 

The  independent  spirit  of  Aragon  caused  it  to  suffer  less  from 
the  mercantile  enterprises  of  the  Inquisition  than  the  more 
submissive  temper  of  Castile.  In  1623  there  was  a  flagrant  case 
in  Toledo,  arising  from  a  butcher-shop  established  by  the  tribunal 
in  violation  of  the  municipal  laws.  Its  violent  methods  triumphed 
and  Don  Luis  de  Paredes,  an  alcalde  de  corte,  sent  thither  to 
settle  the  matter,  was  disgraced  for  attempting  to  restrain  it. 
This  called  forth  an  energetic  protest  from  the  Council  of  Castile, 
which  boldly  told  the  king  that  he  should  not  shut  his  eyes  to 
the  fact  that  the  inquisitors  were  extending  their  privileges  to 
matters  beyond  their  competence,  with  such  prejudice  to  the 
public  weal  that  they  were  making  themselves  superior  to  the 
laws,  to  the  government  and  to  the  royal  power,  trampling  on 
the  judges,  seizing  the  original  documents,  forcing  them  to  revoke 
their  righteous  acts,  arresting  their  officials  and  treating  them 
as  heretics  because  they  discharged  their  duty.^ 

In  procuring  provisions,  whether  for  consumption  or  sale, 
besides  the  freedom  from  local  imposts,  the  Inquisition  had  the 
further  advantage  of  employing  coercive  methods  on  unwilling 
vendors  and  of  disregarding  local  regulations  and  prohibitions. 
As  early  as  1533  the  Aragonese,  at  the  Cortes  of  Monzon,  took 
the  alarm  and  petitioned  that  the  statutes  of  the  towns,  when 
short  of  bread-stuffs  and  provisions,  should  be  binding  on  officials 
of  the  Inquisition,  to  which  the  emperor's  reply  was  the  equivo- 


>  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  38,  fol.  22;  Libre  62,  fol.  457,  526,  528, 
544;  Lib.  922,  fol.  453. 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Mm,  464. — Archive  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Leg. 
621,  fol.  45,  46. 


Chap.  Ill]  SEIZURE  OF  PROVISIONS  393 

eating  one  customary  when  evading  confirmation.^  The  sig- 
nificance of  this  is  manifested  by  a  carta  acordada  of  1540,  author- 
izing the  tribunals  to  get  wheat  in  the  villages  for  their  officials 
and  prisoners  and,  if  the  local  magistrates  interfere,  to  coerce 
them  with  excommunication.  Yet  inquisitorial  zeal  in  using 
this  permission  sometimes  overstepped  the  bounds  and,  in  this 
same  year,  the  Suprema  had  occasion  to  rebuke  a  tribunal  which 
had  issued  orders  to  furnish  it  with  wheat  under  pain  of  a  hundred 
lashes,  for  it  was  told  that,  in  rendering  such  extra-judicial 
sentences,  it  was  exceeding  its  jurisdiction.^  How  bravely  the 
Suprema  itself  overcame  all  such  scruples  was  manifest  when 
laws  of  maximum  prices,  and  the  heavy  discount  on  the  legal- 
tender  spurious  vellon  coinage,  rendered  holders  of  goods  un- 
wiUing  to  part  with  them  at  the  legal  rates.  It  issued,  February 
14,  1626,  to  its  alcalde,  Pedro  de  Salazar,  an  order  to  go  to  any 
places  in  the  vicinage  and  embargo  sheep  and  whatever  else  he 
deemed  necessary,  sufficient  for  the  maintenance  of  the  house- 
holds of  the  inquisitor-general  and  of  the  members  and  officials, 
paying  therefore  at  the  rates  fixed  by  law,  to  effect  which  he 
was  empowered  to  call  for  aid  on  all  royal  justices,  who  were 
required  to  furnish  all  necessary  aid  under  penalty  of  major 
excommunication  lat(£  sentential  and  five  hundred  ducats.  So 
again,  on  April  11,  1630,  Salazar  was  ordered  to  go  anywhere  in 
the  kingdom  and  seize  six  bushels  of  wheat,  in  baked  bread,  for 
the  same  households,  paying  for  it  at  the  established  price,  and  all 
officials,  secular,  ecclesiastical  and  inquisitorial,  were  required 
to  assist  him  under  the  same  penalties.^  This  was  an  organized 
raid  on  all  the  bakeries  of  Madrid,  and  Salazar  was  more  scrupu- 
lous than  the  average  oflficial  of  the  time  if  he  did  not  turn  an 
honest  penny  by  taking  bread  on  his  own  account  at  the  legal 
rate  and  selling  it  at  the  current  one.'' 


1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  47,  48. 

2  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  939,  fol.  63,  64. 

'  Ibidem,  Libro  940.  fol.  220,  221 .  The  excommunication  latcc  sententia  worked 
of  itself  when  the  act  was  committed  and  did  not  require  to  be  published.  It 
was  one  of  the  worst  ecclesiastical  abuses  and  during  the  later  middle  ages  was 
so  lavishly  employed  that  men  scarce  knew  whether  or  not  they  were  excom- 
mimicate  under  some  mandate  of  which  they  had  never  heard. 

*  This  abuse  existed  in  England  under  the  name  of  Purveyance  and  Pre- 
emption, but  there  it  was  restricted  to  the  royal  household.  It  inevitably  led  to 
many  abuses  and  was  replaced,  in  1660,  with  an  excise  on  malt  and  spirituous 
liquors  by  12  Carol.  II,  cap.  24,  U  12-27. 


394  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

The  tribunal  of  Valencia  enjoyed  another  privilege  in  the 
important  matter  of  salt,  the  royal  monopoly  of  which  rendered 
it  so  costly  to  the  ordinary  consmner.  Every  year  the  tribunal 
issued  an  order  to  the  farmers  of  the  salt-works,  commanding 
them,  under  pain  of  excommunication  and  fifty  ducats,  to  deliver 
to  the  receiver  of  confiscations  twelve  cahizes  (about  forty-two 
bushels)  of  refined  salt,  at  the  price  of  eight  reales  the  cahiz,  and 
the  custom-house  officials  were  summoned,  under  the  same 
penalties,  to  let  it  pass  without  detention  or  trouble  for  the 
service  of  God.  The  salt  was  duly  apportioned  among  the 
officials  at  this  trivial  price,  each  inquisitor  getting  four  bushels, 
down  to  the  messengers  who  received  two- thirds  of  a  bushel, 
and  even  juhilado  officials  had  their  portion.  When  or  how  this 
originated  is  unknown;  in  1644  it  seems  estabhshed  as  of  old 
date  and  it  continued  until  1710,  when  the  new  dynasty  brought 
it  to  a  sudden  conclusion.  The  Council  of  Hacienda  reported 
it  to  the  king,  as  though  it  were  a  novelty  just  discovered,  pointing 
out  that  the  eight  reales  were  less  than  the  cost  of  transport 
from  the  works  to  the  magazines;  that  the  manufacture  was  a 
monopoly  of  the  regalias  and  the  price  charged  was  in  no  respect 
a  tax  or  impost,  but  was  regulated  by  the  necessities  of  the 
national  defence;  that  no  other  tribunal  in  Spain,  secular  or 
ecclesiastic,  made  such  a  demand,  while  the  publication  of  cen- 
sures against  royal  officials  was  dangerous  in  those  calamitous 
times.  This  aroused  Phihp,  who  ordered  a  prompt  remedy. 
The  Suprema  no  longer  ventured  an  opposition  or  remonstrance, 
but  wrote  immediately  to  Valencia  expressing  its  surprise;  the 
demand  must  be  withdrawn  at  once;  if  any  censures  had  been 
pubhshed  they  must  be  revoked  and  no  such  demonstration 
should  have  been  made  without  previous  consultation.^ 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  adduce  further  examples  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  tribunals  abused  their  power  for  unlawful 
gains  and  benefits,  and  we  can  readily  conceive  the  exasperation 
thus  excited,  even  among  those  most  zealous  in  the  extermina- 
tion of  heresy. 

Few  of  the  privileges  claimed  by  the  Inquisition  gave  rise  to 
more  bickering  and  contention  than  its  demand  that  all  con- 
nected with  it  should  be  exempt  from  the  billeting  of  troops 

*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inqiiisicion  de  Valencia,  Libro  7  de  Autos,  Leg.  2,  fol. 
391,  494;  Leg.  2,  n.  18;  Leg.  13,  n.  2,  fol.  11. 


Chap.  Ill]  BILLETING  TROOPS  395 

and  the  furnishing  of  hagages  or  beasts  of  burden  for  transporta- 
tion. The  subject  is  one  of  minor  importance,  but  it  furnishes 
so  typical  an  illustration  of  inquisitorial  methods  that  it  is  worthy 
of  examination  somewhat  in  detail.  Under  the  old  monarchy 
the  yantar  or  droit  de  gite,  or  right  to  free  quarters,  was  an  in- 
sufferable burden.  Almost  every  Cortes  of  Leon  and  Castile, 
from  the  twelfth  century  complained  of  it  energetically,  for  it 
was  exercised,  not  only  by  the  royal  court  in  its  incessant  pere- 
grinations, but  by  nobles  and  others  who  could  enforce  it,  and  it 
was  accompanied  by  spoliation  of  every  kind,  while  the  impress- 
ment of  beasts  of  burden  was  an  associated  abuse  and  even  the 
lands  of  the  Church  were  not  exempt.^  The  more  independent 
Aragonese  were  unwilhng  to  submit  to  it,  and  a  fuero  of  the 
Cortes  of  Alcahiz,  in  1436,  provided  that  the  courtiers  and  fol- 
lowers of  the  king  should  pay  all  Christians  in  whose  houses  they 
lodged.^  When  the  Inquisition  was  founded  and  was  to  a  great 
extent  peripatetic,  its  officials  apparently  claimed  free  quarters, 
for  a  clause  in  the  Instructions  of  1498  provides  that  where  a 
tribunal  was  set  up  they  should  pay  for  their  accommodations 
and  provide  their  own  beds  and  necessaries.^  When  travelling, 
a  decree  of  Ferdinand,  October  21,  1500,  repeated  in  1507,  1516, 
1518,  1532,  and  1561,  provided  that  they  should  have  gratuitous 
lodging  and  beds,  with  food  at  moderate  prices.*  The  frequent 
repetition  of  this  indicates  that  it  aroused  opposition  and,  in 
1601,  when  the  inquisitor  of  Valencia  was  ordered  to  go  at  once 
on  a  visitation  of  Tortosa,  he  was  told  not  to  oppress  the  city 
by  demanding  free  quarters  but  to  lodge  decently  in  a  monastery 
or  in  the  house  of  some  official.^ 

Furnishing  free  quarters  however  was  different  from  enjoying 
them.  The  old  abuses  gradually  disappeared  with  the  settled 
habitations  for  kings  and  tribunals,  but  the  change  in  military 
organization,  with  standing  armies,  gave  rise  to  others  which, 
if  more  occasional,  were  also  more  oppressive — the  billeting  of 
troops.  When  Louis  XIV  resorted  to  the  dragonnades — the 
quartering  of  dragoons  on  Huguenot  families — as  an  effective 

*  Cortes  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  T.  I,  II  (Madrid,  1861-3).— Colmeiro,  Cortes  de 
Leon  y  de  Castilla,  "ll,  122,  124,  136,  150,  162-3,  181,  193,  201,  277. 

*  Fueros   y   Ordinacions   del    Reyno    de  Aragon,  Lib.  vii   (Zaragoza,  1624, 
fol.  131). 

'  Arguello,   fol.   22. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  1 ;  Libro  939,  fol.  144. 

*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  5,  n.  2,  fol.  304. 


396  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

coercion  to  conversion,  it  shows  how  severe  was  the  infliction. 
The  rebellion  of  Catalonia,  in  1640,  had  for  its  proximate  cause 
the  outrages  committed  by  troops  quartered  for  the  winter  in 
places  insufficient  for  their  support,  culminating  in  their  burning 
the  churches  of  Riu  de  Arenas  and  Montiro/  The  massacre  in 
Saragossa,  December  28,  1705,  of  the  French  troops  in  the  service 
of  Philip  V,  had  the  same  origin.^ 

As  the  pay  of  Spanish  armies  was  habitually  in  arrears  and 
the  commissariat  system  imperfect,  it  can  be  realized  how  valu- 
able was  the  privilege  of  exemption  from  entertaining  these  vmin- 
vited  guests  and  providing  them  with  transportation  when  they 
departed.  In  the  war  with  Portugal,  in  1666,  Galicia  suffered 
so  seriously  that  we  are  told  a  company  of  cavalry  was  worth 
to  its  captain  two  thousand  ducats  in  ransoms,  from  outrage.' 
That  the  Inquisition  should  claim  such  exemption  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, for  it  was  one  of  the  privileges  of  hidalgos,  but  the  earhest 
allusion  to  it  that  I  have  met  occurs  in  1548,  when  Inquisitor- 
general  Valdes  ordered  that  no  billets  must  be  given  on  houses 
occupied  by  inquisitors  or  officials,  even  though  not  their  own 
or  during  their  absence,  for  their  clothes  were  in  them.^  What 
authority  he  had  to  issue  such  a  command  it  might  be  difficult 
to  say,  but  it  indicates  that  the  exemption  was  an  innovation 
and,  as  it  refers  only  to  salaried  officials,  it  infers  that  the  numer- 
ous unsalaried  ones  were  not  entitled  to  the  privilege,  which 
is  further  proved  by  the  fact  that,  in  the  Castilian  Concordia  of 
1553,  regulating  the  exemptions  of  familiars,  there  is  no  allusion 
to  billeting.  The  action  of  Valdes,  however,  settled  the  matter  as 
far  as  the  salaried  officials  were  concerned  and  even  the  Aragon- 
ese  Cortes  of  1646,  which  greatly  limited  the  claims  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, admitted  that  they  had  the  same  privileges  as  hidalgos.* 

The  determination  with  which  this  was  enforced  is  seen  in  a 
case  in  1695,  when  Inquisitor  Sanz  y  Mufioz  of  Barcelona  threat- 
ened with  excommunication  and  a  fine  of  two  hundred  libras 
the  town-councillors  of  Manlleu  if  they  should  assign  quarters 
in  a  country-house  belonging  to  the  portero  of  the  Inquisition, 
although  it  was  occupied  by  a  peasant  who  worked  on  the  land. 

'  Parets,  Sucesos  de  Catalonia  (Mem.  hist.  Espanol,  XX,  150-182;  Appendix 
pp.  219,  299,  301,  312). 

'  Macanaz,  Regalias  de  los  Reyes  de  Aragon,  p.  Ill  (Madrid,  1879). 
'  Candamo,  op.  cit.  (Valladares,  Semanario  eriid.,  IV,  13). 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  939,  fol.  144. 

*  Fueros  y  Actos  de  Corte  de  Zaragoza,  1645-6  (Zaragoza,  1647,  p.  10). 


Chap.  Ill]  BILLETING  TROOPS  397 

The  councillors  appealed  for  protection  to  the  Audiencia,  or 
royal  court,  which  invited  the  inquisitor  to  settle  the  matter 
amicably  in  the  prescribed  form  of  a  competencia,  but  he  treated 
the  overture  with  such  contempt  that  he  promptly  issued  a 
second  mandate,  under  the  same  penalties,  and  summoned  the 
councillors  to  appear  before  him  as  having  incurred  them.  The 
Audiencia  made  another  attempt  at  pacification  to  which  he 
replied  that  he  proposed  at  once  to  declare  the  councillors  as 
publicly  excommunicated.  The  Diputados  of  Catalonia  there- 
upon protested  vigorously  to  the  king  that,  while  all  the  rest  of 
the  people  were  patriotically  united  in  aiding  the  war,  and  the 
gentry  had  voluntarily  foregone  their  privilege  of  exemption,  the 
officials  •  and  familiars  of  the  Inquisition  were  exciting  tumults 
and  riots  in  their  efforts  to  extend  exemptions  to  those  who  had 
no  claim.^ 

The  chief  trouble  arose  with  the  unsalaried  officials,  especially 
the  multitudinous  famihars,  who  had  no  claim  to  exemption. 
The  Barcelona  tribunal  seems  to  have  started  it,  for  one  of  the 
complaints  made  to  de  Soto  Salazar,  on  his  visitation  of  1567, 
was  that  the  inquisitors  forbade  the  quartering  of  soldiers  in  the 
houses  of  famihars;  in  his  report  he  suggested  that  it  should  be 
done  when  necessary  and  the  Aragonese  Concordia  of  1568  fol- 
lowed this  idea  by  prohibiting  inquisitors  to  support  familiars 
in  refusing  to  receive  men  assigned  to  them  when  there  were  no 
other  houses  to  receive  them.^  There  was  evidently  no  recog- 
nized exemption  but  a  steady  effort  to  establish  one,  while  the 
familiars  complained  that  the  hatred  felt  for  them  led  to  their 
being  oppressed  with  billets  when  others  went  free.  To  remedy 
this  Philip  II,  in  a  cedula  of  February  21,  1576,  ordered  that  no 
discrimination  should  be  made  against  them,  but  that  they  should 
be  placed  on  an  equality  with  justicias  and  regidores  who  were  not 
called  upon  to  furnish  quarters  until  all  other  houses  were  occu- 
pied. Complaints  continued  and  he  advanced  a  step,  February 
22,  1579,  by  decreeing  that  for  three  years,  in  towns  of  upwards 
of  five  hundred  hearths,  familiars  should  be  exempt  from  billeting 
and  furnishing  transportation;  in  smaller  towns,  one-half  should 
be  exempted  and  where  there  was  but  one  he  should  be  exempt. 
This  was  renewed  frequently  for  three  years  at  a  time  and  as 

1  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Fondos  del  Concejo  de  Aragon,  Leg.  708. 
*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  20.— 
Actos  de  Corte  del  Reyno  de  Aragon,  fol.  96  (Zaragoza,  1664). 


398  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

frequently  was  overlooked,  but  this  made  little  differenec,  for 
we  are  told  by  an  experienced  inquisitor  that  it  was  always 
assumed  to  be  in  force  and,  when  a  familiar  complained  of  a 
billet,  the  tribunal  would  issue  a  mandate  ordering  his  relief 
within  three  hours  under  a  penalty  of  100,000  mrs.;  if  the 
exemption  was  in  force,  a  copy  of  the  cedula  was  included  in 
the  mandate,  if  it  was  not  it  still  was  quoted  as  existing  in  the 
archives  of  the  tribunal/ 

There  were  few  questions  which  gave  rise  to  more  embroilment 
than  this.  Both  sides  were  unscrupulous;  the  privilege  excited 
ill-will,  it  was  evaded  by  the  authorities  wherever  possible  and 
the  tribunals  were  kept  busy  in  defending  their  familiars  with 
customary  violence.  At  length,  in  1634,  the  necessities  of  the 
state  were  pleaded  by  Philip  IV  as  his  reason  for  withdrawing 
all  exemptions — a  measure  which  he  was  obliged  to  repeat  more 
than  once.^  It  is  somewhat  remarkable  therefore  that,  when  the 
Cortes  of  Aragon,  in  1646,  succeeded  in  greatly  abridging  the 
privileges  of  familiars,  they  were  included  with  the  salaried  offi- 
cials in  the  exemption  from  billets.  This  did  not  avail  them 
much  for  we  are  told  that,  in  the  changes  effected  by  the  Cortes, 
the  terror  felt  for  the  Inquisition  was  so  greatly  diminished  that 
there  was  scant  ceremony  in  imposing  on  its  officials;  that  the 
familiars  were  singled  out  to  have  two  or  three  soldiers  quartered 
on  them  and  when  they  complained  the  tribunal  ventured  no 
more  than  to  instruct  its  commissioner  to  use  persuasion.^  Cata- 
lonia was  not  so  fortunate  and  strife  continued  with  the  usual 
bitterness.  As  a  frontier  province,  in  war  time  it  was  occupied 
with  troops  and  there  were  abundant  opportunities  for  friction. 
In  1695  the  Diputados  complained  that,  as  the  only  mode  of 
escaping  billets  was  to  become  a  familiar,  many  had  themselves 
appointed,  although  there  was  already  an  innumerable  multitude, 
and  that  even  when  the  local  magistrates  were  compelled  to 
receive  soldiers,  the  familiars  refused,  in  contempt  of  the  royal 
orders.*  

1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Libro  23,  fol.  42;  Leg.  1157,  fol.  23.— Modo  de  Pro- 
ceder,  fol.  41-2  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  122). 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg  2,  n.  18. — Archive  de 
Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  23,  fol.  42. 

^  Fueros  y  Actos  de  Corte,  p.  12  (Zaragoza,  1647). — Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D, 
118,  fol.    122. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Libro  26,  fol.  69;  Libro  66,  fol.  78.— Archive  de  la  C 
de  Aragon,  Fondos  del  Concejo  de  Aragen,  Leg.  708. 


Chap.  Ill]  BILLETING  TROOPS  399 

The  War  of  Succession  brought  fresh  necessities  and  the  change 
of  dynasty  was  unfavorable  to  the  Inquisition  in  this  as  in  so 
much  else.  A  royal  decree  of  February  11,  1706,  abolished  all 
exemptions  but,  as  a  favor  to  the  Inquisition,  four  of  its  officials 
'were  excepted  in  towns  and  twenty  in  cities  that  were  seats  of 
tribunals.  The  Suprema  accepted  this  cheerfully  but,  when  a 
decree  of  January  19,  1712,  revoked  all  exemptions,  it  remon- 
strated and  was  told  that,  while  the  king  recognized  the  claims 
of  the  Inquisition  to  all  the  privileges  granted  by  his  predecessors, 
the  existing  urgency  required  the  withdrawal  of  all  exemptions 
and,  as  the  law  was  absolute,  he  could  make  no  exceptions. 
Although  this  covered  the  salaried  officials,  it  seems  to  have  been 
the  f amihars  who  complained  the  loudest ;  possibly  now  that  the 
tribunals  could  no  longer  protect  them  they  were  exposed  to 
special  discrimination.  It  was  a  question  of  money,  however, 
rather  than  of  hardship,  for  a  system  of  composition  had  been 
developed  under  which  by  paying  the  cuartel  or  utensilio—an 
assessment  proportioned  to  the  wealth  of  the  individual— the 
billet  was  escaped.'  When  the  urgency  of  immediate  peril  was 
passed  these  decrees  were  either  withdrawn  or  became  obsolete. 
The  claim  of  exemption  revived  and  with  it  the  active  efforts 
of  the  tribunals  to  protect  those  whose  exemptions  were  dis- 
regarded and  to  punish  the  officials  who  disregarded  them.^ 

In  1728  Phihp  V  made  a  well-intentioned  attempt  to  reheve 
the  oppression  of  the  poor  arising  from  the  numerous  classes 
of  officials  who  claimed  exemption  from  the  common  burdens, 
including  the  billeting  of  troops.  As  for  the  famiUars,  he  says, 
who  all  daim  exemptions  and  give  rise  to  disturbances,  attacks 
on  the  local  magistrates,  with  excommunications  and  other 
penalties,  and  perpetual  competencias,  all  this  must  cease.  Yet 
he  admits  their  exemption  and  only  insists  that  it  must  be 
confined  to  the  number  allowed  by  the  Concordia  of  1553;  that 
Umitation  had  never  been  observed  and  the  inquisitors  had 
appointed  large  numbers  in  excess  of  it,  in  spite  of  perpetual 
remonstrance,  and  Philip  now  ordered  that  tribunals  should  not 
issue  certificates  to  more  than  the  legal  number  and  should  not 
take  proceedings  against  the  local  magistrates.'  As  usual  the 
royal  orders  were  disregarded.    The  tribunal  of  Valencia  threat- 

»  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valeucia,  Leg.  2,  n.  18. 

»  Ibidem,   Leeajo  390. 

'  Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  vi,  Tit.  xiv,  auto  4. 


400  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

ened  with  excommunication  and  fine  the  magistrates  of  Jativa 
and  San  Mateo,  at  the  instance  of  some  familiars  on  whom  soldiers 
had  been  quartered,  and,  on  learning  this,  Philip  addressed  the 
Suprema  in  1729  stating  that  the  records  showed  that  famihars 
were  entitled  to  no  exemption;  even  if  they  were,  the  tribunal 
had  exceeded  its  powers  in  employing  obstreperous  methods  in 
defiance  of  the  royal  decrees.  There  must  be  no  competencia; 
the  Valencia  tribunal  must  be  notified  not  to  exceed  its  juris- 
diction and  the  Suprema  itself  must  observe  the  royal  orders. 
After  the  delay  of  a  month,  the  Suprema  forwarded  the  royal 
letter  to  Valencia,  sullenly  telling  the  tribunal  to  report  what 
could  be  done  and  not  to  act  further  without  orders.^ 

For  two  centuries  the  Inquisition  had  been  accustomed  to 
obey  or  to  disregard  the  royal  decrees  at  its  pleasure  and  to 
tyrannize  over  the  local  authorities.  The  habit  was  not  easily 
broken  and  it  was  hard  to  conform  itself  to  the  new  order  of 
things.  A  formulary  of  about  1740  contains  a  letter  to  be  sent 
to  magistrates  granting  billets  on  famihars,  couched  in  the  old 
arrogant  and  peremptory  terms  and  threatening  excommunica- 
tion and  a  fine  of  two  hundred  ducats.  Familiars,  it  says,  are 
not  to  furnish  quarters  and  beasts  of  burden,  except  in  extreme 
urgency  when  no  exemptions  are  permitted,  and  this  it  assumes 
to  be  in  accordance  with  the  royal  decrees,  including  the  latest 
one  of  November  3,  1737.^  I  can  find  no  trace  of  a  decree  of 
1737  and  we  may  assume  that  it  was  this  obstinacy  of  the  Inqui- 
sition that  induced  PhiUp,  in  1743,  to  reissue  his  decree  of  1728 
with  an  expression  of  regret  at  its  inobservance  and  the  dis- 
astrous results  which  had  ensued ;  he  added  that,  when  the  houses 
of  the  non-exempt  were  insufficient  for  quartering  troops,  they 
could  be  billeted  on  hidalgos  and  nobles.^ 

The  Inquisition  still  adhered  to  its  claims,  but  Carlos  III 
taught  it  to  abandon  its  comminatory  style.  When,  in  1781, 
the  authorities  of  Castellon  de  la  Plana  billeted  troops  on  famil- 
iars, the  Valencia  tribunal  adopted  the  more  judicious  method 
of  persuading  the  captain-general  that  they  were  to  be  classed 
with  hidalgos  and  he  issued  orders  to  that  efi'ect.  This  did  not 
please  Carlos  III,  who  brushed  aside  the  claim  to  exemption 
by  a  peremptory  order  that  the  familiars  of  Castellon  de  la  Plana 

*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Legajo  14,  n.  2,  fol.  9. 

'  Ibidem,  Legajo  299. 

'  Autos  Acordados,  ubi  sup. 


Chap.  Ill]  BEARING  ARMS  401 

should  subject  themselves  to  the  local  government  in  the  matters 
of  billets  and  that  there  should  be  no  change  until  he  should  issue 
further  commands.^ 

This  would  seem  in  principle  to  abrogate  all  claims  to  exemp- 
tion, but  Spanish  tenacity  still  held  fast  to  what  it  had  claimed 
and,  in  1800,  when  Jose  Poris,  a  familiar  of  Alcira,  complained 
that  the  governor  had  quartered  on  him  an  officer  of  the  regiment 
of  Sagunto,  the  Valencia  tribunal  took  measures  for  his  relief.^ 
The  times  were  adverse  to  privilege,  however,  and  in  1805  the 
Captain-general  of  Catalonia  sent  a  circular  to  all  the  towns 
stating  that  familiars  were  not  exempt.  The  magistrates  accord- 
ingly compelled  them  to  furnish  quarters  and  beasts  of  burden, 
and,  when  the  tribunal  complained  to  the  captain-general  and 
adduced  proofs  in  support  of  its  claims,  he  responded  with  the 
decrees  of  1729  and  1743,  which  he  assumed  to  have  abrogated 
the  exemption  and  he  continued  to  coerce  the  familiars.  The 
same  process  was  going  on  in  Valencia  and,  when  that  tribunal 
applied  to  Barcelona  for  information  and  learned  the  result,  it 
ordered  its  familiars  to  submit  under  protest.  Then  followed  a 
royal  cedula  of  August  20,  1807,  limiting  strictly  what  exemptions 
were  still  allowed ;  the  Napoleonic  invasion  supervened  and  under 
the  Restoration  I  have  met  with  no  trace  of  their  survival.^ 

Another  privilege  which  occasioned  endless  debate  and  con- 
tention was  the  right  of  officials  and  familiars  to  bear  arms, 
especially  prohibited  ones.  This  was  a  subject  which,  during 
the  middle  ages,  had  taxed  to  the  utmost  the  civilizing  efforts 
of  legislators,  while  the  power  assumed  by  inquisitors  to  issue 
licences  to  carry  arms,  in  contravention  of  municipal  statutes, 
was  the  source  of  no  little  trouble,  especially  in  Italian  cities.^ 
The  necessity  of  restriction,  for  the  sake  of  public  peace,  was 
peculiarly  felt  in  Spain,  where  the  popular  temper  and  the  sen- 
sitiveness as  to  the  pundonor  were  especially  provocative  of 
deadly  strife.^    It  would  be  impossible  to  enumerate  the  endless 

*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  4,  n.  2,  fol.  79;  Leg.  16, 
n.  5,  fol.  4. 

*  Ibidem,  Varios,  Leg.  392;  Leg.  492,  n.  27. 

»  Ibidem,  Leg.  398;  Cartas  del  Consejo,  Leg.  17,  n.  3,  fol.  22. 

*  See  the  Author's  Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages,  I,  382  sqq. 

*  See  for  example  the  Vida  de  D.  Diego,  Duque  de  Estrada  (Mem.  hist,  espanol, 

XII,  47). 

26 


402  PRIVILEGES  AND   EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

series  of  decrees  which  succeeded  each  other  with  confusing 
rapidity  and  the  repetition  of  which,  in  every  variety  of  form, 
shows  conclusively  how  httle  they  were  regarded  and  how  httle 
they  effected.  Particular  energy  was  directed  against  armas 
alevosas — treacherous  weapons — which  could  be  concealed  about 
the  person.  In  the  Catalan  Cortes  of  1585,  PhiUp  II  denounced 
arquebuses,  fire-locks  and  more  especially  the  small  ones  known 
as  pistols,  as  unworthy  the  name  of  arms,  as  treacherous  weapons, 
useless  in  war  and  provocative  of  murder,  which  had  caused 
great  damage  in  Catalonia  and  had  been  prohibited  in  his  other 
kingdoms.  They  were  therefore  forbidden,  not  only  to  be  carried 
but  even  to  be  possessed  at  home  and  in  secret,  and  against  this 
no  privilege  should  avail,  whether  of  the  miUtary  class  or  official 
or  familiar  of  the  Inquisition  or  by  hcence  of  the  king  or  captain- 
general,  under  penalty  for  those  of  gentle  blood  of  two  years' 
exile,  for  plebeians  of  two  years'  galley-service,  and  for  French- 
men or  Gascons  of  death,  without  power  of  commutation  by 
any  authority.  Tliree  palms,  or  twenty-seven  inches  of  barrel, 
was  the  minimum  length  allowed  for  fire-arms  in  Catalonia  and 
four  palms  in  Castile.  PhiUp  IV,  in  1663,  even  prohibited  the 
manufacture  of  pistols  and  deprived  of  exemptions  and  fuero 
those  who  carried  them,  while  as  for  poniards  and  daggers,  Philip 
V,  in  1721,  threatened  those  who  bore  them  with  six  years  of 
presidio  for  nobles  and  six  years  of  galleys  for  commoners.^ 

These  specimens  of  multitudinous  legislation,  directed  against 
arms  of  all  kinds,  enable  us  to  appreciate  how  highly  prized  was 
the  privilege  of  carrying  them.  In  an  age  of  violence  it  was 
indispensable  for  defence  and  was  equally  desired  as  affording 
opportunities  for  offence.  That  the  Inquisition  should  claim 
it  for  those  in  its  service  was  inevitable  and  it  had  the  excuse, 
at  least  during  the  earher  period,  that  there  was  danger  in  the 
arrest  and  transportation  of  prisoners  and  in  the  enmities  which 
it  provoked,  although  this  latter  danger  was  much  less  than  it 
habitually  claimed.  The  old  rules,  moreover,  were  well  known 
under  which  no  local  laws  were  allowed  to  interfere  with 
such  privilege,^  and  the  Inquisition  had  scarce  been  established 
in  Valencia  when  the  question  arose  through  the  refusal  of  the 


'  Constitutions  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  ix,  Tit.  xix,  cap.  3,  4  (Barcelona,  1588, 
p.  495). — Novfs.  Recop.,  Lib.  xii.  Tit.  xix,  leyes  2,  8,  15. 

''  Michael  Albert,  Repertorium  de  Pravitate  Haereticorum,  s.  v.  Arma  (Val- 
entiae,  1494). 


Chap.  Ill]  BEARING  ARMS  403 

local  authorities  to  allow  its  ministers  to  carry  arms.  Ferdinand 
promptly  decided  the  matter  in  its  favor  by  an  order,  March  22, 
1486,  that  licences  should  be  issued  to  all  whom  the  inquisitors 
might  name — for  the  time  had  not  yet  come  in  which  the  in- 
quisitors themselves  issued  licences.^  Probably  complaints  arose 
as  to  the  abuse  of  the  privilege  for  the  instructions  of  1498,  which 
were  principally  measures  of  reform,  provided  that,  in  cities, 
where  bearing  arms  was  forbidden,  no  official  should  carry  them 
except  when  accompanying  an  inquisitor  or  alguazil.^  As  indicated 
by  this,  pohcy  on  the  subject  was  unsettled  and  it  so  remained 
for  a  while.  November  14,  1509,  Ferdinand  ordered  that  the 
ministers  of  the  Sicilian  Inquisition  should  not  be  deprived  of 
their  arms;  June  2,  1510,  he  thanked  the  Valencia  tribunal  for 
providing  that  its  officials  should  go  unarmed,  for,  by  the  grace 
of  God,  there  is  no  one  now  who  impedes  or  resists  the  Inquisi- 
tion and,  if  there  were,  the  royal  officials  or  he  in  person  will 
provide  for  it;  then,  in  about  three  months,  on  August  28th,  he 
wrote  to  the  Governor  of  Valencia  that  the  salaried  officials 
of  the  tribunal,  with  their  servants  and  forty  familiars  should 
enjoy  all  the  prerogatives  of  the  Holy  Office  and  were  not  to  be 
deprived  of  their  arms.^ 

We  see  in  all  this  traces  of  general  popular  opposition  to 
exempting  inquisitorial  officials  from  the  laws  forbidding  arms- 
bearing.  This  was  stimulated  by  the  difficulty  of  preventing 
the  exemptions  from  being  claimed  by  unauthorized  persons 
without  limit,  leading  Catalonia,  in  the  Concordia  of  1512,  to 
provide  that  officials  bearing  arms  could  be  cUsarmed,  like  other 
citizens,  unless  they  could  show  a  certificate  from  the  tri- 
bunal, and  further  that  the  number  of  familiars  for  the  whole 
principality  should  be  reduced  to  thirty,  except  in  cases  of 
necessity."*  Although  this  Concordia  was  not  observed,  Inquisi- 
tor-general Mercader,  in  his  instructions  of  August  28,  1514, 
admitted  the  necessity  of  such  regulations  by  prohibiting  the 
issue  of  licences  to  bear  arms;  by  reducing  the  overgrown  number 
of  familiars  to  twenty-five  in  Barcelona  and  ten  each  in  Perpignan 


1  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Regist.  3684,  fol.  89. 
^  Instrucciones  de  1498,  ?  2  (Argviello,  fol.  12). 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Tnquisicion,  Libro  3,  fol.  96,  125.— Bibl.  nacional, 
MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  20. 

*  Pragmdticas  y  altres  Drets  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  viii,  cap.  1,  I  16. 


404  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

and  other  towns,  by  permitting  the  disarmament  of  those  who 
.could  not  exhibit  certificates  and  by  endeavoring  to  check  the 
fraud  of  lending  these  certificates  by  requiring  them  to  swear  not 
to  do  so  and  keeping  fists  whereby  they  could  be  identified/ 

The  right  of  arming  its  familiars,  thus  assumed  by  the 
Inquisition  was  by  no  means  uncontested.  We  have  seen  how 
the  Empress  Isabella  when  in  Valencia,  in  1524,  ordered  the 
arms  taken  from  them  and  broken,  leading  to  a  protest  from 
Inquisitor-general  Manrique,  who  asserted  this  to  be  a  privilege 
enjoyed  since  the  introduction  of  the  Inquisition.  In  spite  of 
this  Charles  V,  by  a  cedula  of  August  2,  1539,  ordered  inquisitors 
to  prohibit  the  use  of  arms  by  famiUars.^  The  matter  remained 
a  subject  of  contest  for  some  years  more.  In  1553  there  were 
quarrels  concerning  it  between  the  Valencia  tribunal  and  the 
local  authorities,  but  the  ConcorcUa  of  1554  admitted  the  right 
unreservedly.^ 

By  this  time,  in  fact,  it  was  generally  recognized,  but  this,  in 
place  of  removing  a  cause  of  cUscord  only  intensified  and  multi- 
plied it.  The  right  to  bear  arms  could  scarce  be  held  to  include 
weapons  which  were  prohibited  to  all  by  general  regulations,  yet 
the  authorities  had  no  jurisdiction  over  famiUars  to  enforce 
them.  Thus  when  flint-lock  arquebuses  were  prohibited  and  the 
Viceroy  of  Valencia  included  familiars  in  a  proclamation  on  the 
subject,  in  1562,  Phifip  II  called  him  to  account,  telfing  him  that 
the  order  must  come  from  the  inquisitors  and,  in  1575  he  repeated 
this  to  the  Viceroy  of  Catalonia."  The  Suprema  nnght  decide 
that  familiars  were  included  in  prohibitory  decrees  and  that 
inquisitors  must  issue  the  necessary  orders,  as  it  did,  in  1596, 
with  regard  to  one  respecting  daggers  and  in  1598  to  one  for- 
bidding fire-locks  and  pistols  at  night,^  but  the  tribunals  had  no 
police  to  enforce  these  orders  and,  when  the  secular  authorities 
undertook  to  do  so,  inquisitors  were  prompt  to  resent  it,  in  their 
customary  fashion,  as  a  violation  of  the  immunities  of  the  Holy 
Office.  

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  933. 

'  Ibidem,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  98.— Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  20. 

»  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  926,  fol.  33. — Bibl.  nacional,  MSS., 
D,  118,  fol.  20;  D,  146.— MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130. 

This  article  however  was  omitted  from  the  Valencia  Concordia  of  1568. 

«  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  20.— Portocarrero,  ?  57. 

*  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  146. — Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valen- 
cia, Cartas  del  Consejo,  Leg.  5,  n.  2,  fol.  76. 


Chap.  Ill]  BEARING  ARMS  405 

Even  more  fruitful  of  trouble  was  the  fact  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  make  the  inquisitors  respect  the  limitations  imposed  by 
the  Concordias  on  the  number  of  familiars  and  consequently 
to  obey  the  rule  of  furnishing  lists  of  them  to  the  authorities 
so  that  they  might  be  known.  Appointments  were  lavished 
greatly  in  excess  of  all  possible  needs  and  without  informing 
the  magistrates — often,  indeed,  without  keeping  records  in  the 
archives.  The  familiar  might  or  might  not  carry  with  him  the 
evidence  of  his  official  character  but,  whether  he  did  so  or  not, 
his  arrest  or  disarmament  was  violently  resented,  and  the  ordinary 
citizen  when  caught  offending  was  apt  to  claim  that  he  was  a 
familiar  in  hopes  of  being  released.  How  exasperating  to  the 
civil  authorities  was  the  situation  may  be  gathered  from  a  case 
occurring  in  Barcelona,  in  1568.  The  veguer,  on  his  nightly 
rounds,  arrested  Franco  Foix,  whom  he  found  armed  with  a 
coat  of  mail,  sword,  buckler  and  dagger.  The  culprit  claimed 
to  be  a  familiar  and  the  veguer  obediently  handed  him  over  to 
the  tribunal.  He  proved  not  to  be  one,  but,  instead  of  returning 
him,  the  inquisitors  fined  him  in  forty-four  reales  for  their  own 
benefit  (presumably  as  a  penalty  for  personating  an  official)  and 
restored  to  him  his  forfeited  arms.^  When  the  laws  were  thus 
openly  set  at  defiance,  conditions  were  eminently  favorable  for 
quarrels,  even  without  the  violent  mutual  animosity  every- 
where existing  between  the  tribunals  and  the  civil  authorities; 
collisions  were  correspondingly  frequent  and  were  fought  to  the 
bitter  end. 

It  would  be  wearisome  to  multiply  cases  illustrating  the 
various  phases  of  these  quarrels  which  occupied  the  attention 
of  the  king  and  his  councils  in  their  settlement.  A  single  one  will 
suffice  to  show  the  spirit  in  which  they  were  conducted  on  both 
sides.  In  1620,  by  order  of  the  tribunal  of  Valencia,  acting  in 
its  secular  capacity  and  not  in  a  matter  of  faith,  the  commissioner 
at  Jativa  arrested  a  man  and  sent  him  to  Valencia  under  the 
customary  guard  of  relays  of  familiars.  One  of  these  named 
Juan  Lopez,  armed  with  a  prohibited  flint-lock,  was  conveying 
him,  on  February  23d,  when  at  Catarroja,  about  a  league  from 
the  city,  some  armed  alguaziles,  in  the  service  of  Dr.  Pedro 
Juan  Rejaule,  a  judge  on  the  criminal  side  of  the  Audiencia, 
arrested  him,  taking  away  his  weapon  and  carrying  him  to  Dr. 


*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Legajo  15,  fol.  20. 


406  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

Rejaule's  house.  Disregarding  his  documents,  Rejaule  told  him 
that  he  could  not  be  released  without  giving  bail  to  present 
himself  to  the  viceroy  and,  as  he  was  unable  to  furnish  it,  he 
was  handed  as  a  prisoner  to  the  local  magistrates.  On  learning 
the  event  the  inquisitors  apphed  to  the  regent  of  the  Audiencia 
who  ordered  the  release  of  Lopez,  which  was  effected  and  Rejaule 
visited  the  tribunal,  admitted  that  he  had  been  in  error,  and 
promised  in  future  to  observe  all  necessary  respect.  In  spite 
of  this  the  inquisitors  proceeded  to  try  him  for  impeding  the 
Inquisition,  ordered  him  to  keep  his  house  as  a  prison  under  pain 
of  three  hundred  ducats,  and  threw  into  the  secret  prison,  as 
though  they  were  heretics,  the  four  alguaziles  who  had  made 
the  arrest.  When  notice  of  this  was  served  on  Rejaule  he  pro- 
tested that  the  inquisitors  were  not  his  judges  and  that  he  would 
appeal,  whereupon  the  additional  indignity  was  inflicted  upon 
him  of  posting  two  guards  in  his  house  with  orders  to  keep  him 
in  sight. 

This  produced  a  crisis.  The  viceroy  assembled  in  his  palace 
all  three  solas  or  branches  of  the  Audiencia,  where  the  matter  was 
fully  discussed  and  it  was  resolved  to  release  Rejaule  and  hold 
the  two  guards  as  hostages  for  the  imprisoned  alguaziles.  At 
2  A.M.  Dr.  Morla  went  with  halberdiers  furnished  by  the  viceroy, 
seized  and  handcuffed  the  guards  and  brought  Rejaule  to  his 
brother  judges.  At  the  same  time  a  scrivener  of  the  court  had 
been  sent  to  the  inquisitor  Salazar  with  a  message  from  the  viceroy 
to  the  effect  that,  as  the  offence  had  not  been  in  a  matter  of  faith, 
Rejaule  was  justiciable  only  by  the  king;  if  the  Inquisition  held 
otherwise  a  competencia  could  be  formed;  the  Audiencia  had 
decided  that  Rejaule  and  the  alguaziles  must  be  released  and 
the  guards  be  held  until  this  was  done.  The  scrivener  also 
presented  a  petition  of  appeal  to  the  pope,  or  to  whomsoever  was 
judge,  and  demanded  apostolos  or  letters  to  that  effect.  To  this 
Salazar  replied  in  writing  that  the  arrests  had  been  made  for 
matters  incident  to  and  dependent  upon  affairs  of  the  faith,  in 
which  the  Inquisition  had  exclusive  jurisdiction  and  could  admit 
no  competencia;  he  could  say  no  more  as  to  the  cause  of  the 
arrests  without  violating  the  secrecy  of  the  Inquisition  and  incur- 
ring excommunication  and  he  begged  the  viceroy  not  to  interfere 
in  a  matter  concerning  so  greatly  the  service  of  God  and  the 
king.  At  4  a.m.  the  scrivener  returned  with  this  reply  to  where 
the  viceroy  and  judges  were  waiting.    At  the  magic  word  "faith," 


Chap.  Ill]  BEARING  ARMS  407 

however  fraudulently  employed,  all  opposition  vanished.  By 
six  o'clock  Dr.  Morla  had  taken  Rejaule  back  to  his  house  and 
had  replaced  the  guards  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  scrivener 
bore  to  the  inquisitors  a  note  from  the  viceroy  saying  that,  as 
they  had  certified  that  it  was  a  matter  of  faith,  the  Audiencia  had 
restored  everything  to  its  previous  condition  and  he  offered  not 
only  not  to  impede  the  Inquisition  but  to  show  it  all  aid  and 
favor. 

The  case  was  thus  transferred  to  the  court,  where  the  Suprema 
on  one  side  and  the  Council  of  Aragon  on  the  other,  struggled 
for  a  favorable  decision  from  Philip  III.  The  former  evidently 
felt  the  weakness  of  the  claim  that  the  faith  was  involved,  but 
it  argued  that  impeding  the  Inquisition  in  any  way  conferred 
jurisdiction  on  it  and  Ahaga,  in  his  double  capacity  of  inquisitor- 
general  and  royal  confessor,  added  a  bitter  complaint  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  the  Inquisition  was  abused  and  maltreated.  To 
this  the  king  replied  that  he  wished  the  affair  treated  with  the 
customary  moderation  and  mercy  of  the  Holy  Office,  especially 
as  it  was  not  directly  a  matter  of  faith,  and  whatever  sentence 
the  Suprema  resolved  upon  for  Rejaule  and  the  other  inculpated 
parties  must  be  submitted  to  him  before  publication.  Besides, 
he  ordered  a  junta  of  two  members  each  of  the  Suprema  and 
the  Council  of  Aragon  to  be  formed  and  to  devise  a  plan  for  the 
avoidance  of  future  contention.  This  assumed  Rejaule's  guilt 
and  awarded  the  victory  to  the  Suprema,  but  it  was  not  satisfied 
and  presented  a  consulta  representing  the  perilous  condition  of 
the  Valencia  tribunal,  which  necessitated  the  punishment  of  the 
delinquents  as  a  warning,  but  Philip  merely  repeated  his  former 
decision.^ 

What  was  Rejaule's  fate  we  have  no  means  of  knowing,  but 
his  career  was  evidently  blasted,  whatever  may  have  been  the 
so-called  mercy  exhibited.  As  for  the  perilous  position  of  the 
tribunal  insisted  on  by  the  Suprema,  it  seems  to  be  set  forth  in  a 
petition  of  the  syndic  of  the  College  of  Familiars,  February  25, 
1616,  complaining  of  arrests  and  ill-treatment  and  asking  the 
tribunal  to  take  evidence  on  the  subject.  It  accordingly  did  so, 
but  while  the  testimony  was  ample  as  to  the  existence  of  ill- 
feeling  towards  the  familiars,  in  substance  it  amounted  only  to 
their  being  deprived  at  night  of  daggers  and  bucklers  which 


1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  19,  fol.  161;  Libro  927,  fol.  329. 


408  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

were  prohibited  weapons,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  any  action 
was  taken  in  consequence.  Complaints  continued  and  another 
petition  of  October  30,  1626,  asked  that  an  envoy  be  sent  to  the 
Suprema,  for  which  the  famihars  would  defray  the  cost,  for 
unless  some  relief  was  had  they  would  resign  in  a  body,  as  their 
position  only  exposed  them  to  wrong  and  insult  and  their  privi- 
leges were  set  at  naught/ 

The  difficulty  of  enforcing  the  laws  on  the  people  was  intensi- 
fied by  the  privileges  claimed  by  the  familiars.  They  were  by 
no  means  peaceable  folk  and  the  unprivileged  class  naturally 
regarded  it  as  a  hardship  to  be  restricted  to  the  use  of  swords 
when  these  gentry  were  so  much  more  efficiently  armed.  The 
Suprema  as  a  rule  supported  its  satelHtes.  For  ten  years,  from 
1574,  it  resisted,  in  Aragon,  the  enforcement  on  famihars  of  a 
royal  decree  against  carrying  prohibited  weapons  at  night, 
although  the  Concordia  of  Aragon  in  1568  provided  that  famil- 
iars should  obey  the  laws  respecting  arms  and  that  inquisitors 
should  not  protect  them  in  violations.  Members  of  all  the  Royal 
Councils  were  involved  in  the  discussion,  as  though  it  were  the 
weightiest  affair  of  state  and  it  was  not  until  1584  that  the 
Suprema  was  induced  to  issue  the  necessary  orders,  which  it  was 
obliged  to  repeat  in  1592.^ 

Another  illustration  of  its  attitude  occurs  with  respect  to  a 
pragmatica  of  great  severity  against  the  use  of  fire-arms,  issued 
by  Philip  III,  March  14,  1613,  pronouncing  the  mere  discharge 
of  a  weapon  to  be  a  capital  offence,  whether  death  ensued  or 
not.  It  abrogated  all  privileges  and  exemptions  and  conferred 
on  the  royal  courts  full  jurisdiction  in  such  cases,  and  all  this 
was  accepted  and  its  observance  enjoined  by  the  Suprema. 
This  met  with  such  scant  obedience  that  the  Council  of  Aragon 
in  a  consulta  of  July  31,  1632,  called  the  king's  attention  to  the 
evils  existing  from  the  exemption  of  familiars  and  suggested 
that  they  should  not  be  permitted  to  decline  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  courts  for  crimes  committed  with  fire-arms.  It  was  doubtless 
in  consequence  of  opposition  by  the  Suprema  that  it  was  not 
until  September  30,  1633,  that  Phihp  IV,  in  a  cedula  addressed 
to  the  Viceroy  of  Valencia,  ordered  that,  with  the  assent  of  the 
Councils  of  Aragon  and  of  the  Inquisition,  the  pragmatica  of 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  6,  fol.  48,  225. 
'  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528. — Actos  de  Corte  del  RejTio  de 
Aragon,  fol.  94  (Zaragoza,  1664).— Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  146. 


Chap.  Ill]  BEARING  ARMS  409 

1613  must  be  strictly  observed  by  which  all  exemptions  were 
disallowed  and  offenders  were  triable  and  punishable  by  the 
royal  courts;  the  Inquisition  must  withdraw  from  all  pending 
competencias  and  the  cases  be  carried  to  conclusion  by  the 
Audiencia.  The  Suprema  must  have  consented  unwillingly  to 
this,  for  it  labored  with  the  wavering  monarch  and,  on  November 
8th,  he  wrote  withdrawing  the  cedula  and  ordering  the  suspension 
of  all  cases  before  the  Audiencia.  A  few  weeks  later  he  yielded 
to  other  influences  and  annulled  the  last  letter,  but  added  that 
his  orders  of  September  30th  must  be  executed  impartially, 
for  the  Inquisition  complained  that  it  was  enforced  only  against 
its  officials  and  in  such  case  he  would  give  it  a  free  hand  again. 
December  27th  the  Suprema  sent  this  to  the  Valencia  tribunal 
with  formal  instructions  to  obey  it,  but  added  a  confidential 
letter  saying  that  efforts  would  not  be  relaxed  to  persuade  the 
king  to  remit  all  such  cases  back  to  them;  meanwhile  an  agree- 
ment had  been  obtained  from  the  Council  of  Aragon  that  all 
sentences  by  the  Audiencia  should  be  referred  to  it  before  execu- 
tion and  the  tribunal  must  watch  them  closely  and  send  such 
reports  as  would  enable  the  Suprema  to  obtain  favorable  action 
on  them.^ 

For  this  endless  strife,  for  the  habitual  disregard  of  the  laws 
by  familiars,  the  Suprema  was  primarily  responsible.  It  was 
perfectly  acquainted  with  the  innumerable  edicts  specifying 
prohibited  weapons  and  forbidding  the  carrying  of  them  after 
night-fall;  it  acquiesced,  ostensibly  at  least,  in  the  subjection 
of  these  offences  to  the  royal  courts  and  yet  it  encouraged  famil- 
iars in  the  belief  that  it  had  power  to  override  all  laws  and  could 
confer  licence  to  violate  them.  The  formula  of  commission  which 
it  caused  to  be  issued  to  familiars  contained  a  clause  granting 
them  full  liberty  to  carry  arms,  offensive  and  defensive,  publicly 
and  secretly,  by  day  or  by  night,  and  ordering  all  secular  officials 
to  abstain  from  interference  with  them,  in  virtue  of  holy  obedi- 
ence and  under  penalty  of  excommunication  and  of  fifty  thousand 
maravedis  applicable  to  the  expenses  of  the  Holy  Office.^    It  could 


*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  8,  n.  2,  fol.  405-7. 

2  Ibidem,  Leg.  1,  n.  3,  foL  49.— Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  20;  fol.  54, 
n.  21 ;  Ibidem,  D,  146. 

The  commission  as  familiar  issued  March  7,  1642,  by  the  tribunal  of  Toledo  to 
Francisco  de  Gayeta  of  Madrid,  says  "y  os  damos  licencia  y  facultad  para  que 
podais  traer  armas,  asi  ofensivas  como  defensivas,  publica  y  secretamente,  de 


410  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

not  be  fuller  or  more  explicit;  there  are  no  exceptions  as  to  the 
character  of  arms  or  allusion  to  the  jurisdiction  in  these  cases 
granted  by  the  king  to  the  royal  courts.  When  one  branch  of  the 
government  thus  resolutely  placed  itself  in  opposition  to  the  sov- 
ereign and  encouraged  its  subordinates  to  resist  the  laws  and  the 
constituted  authorities,  peace  was  impossible  and  conflicts  were 
inevitable.  Yet  the  illegahty  of  all  this  was  admitted  when,  in 
1634,  the  familiars  of  Valencia  held  a  meeting  to  assess  themselves 
for  a  donation  to  be  offered  to  the  king,  in  return  for  a  privilege 
to  bear  arms,  and  the  Suprema  instructed  the  tribunal  to  aid  the 
movement,  and  again  when,  in  1638,  a  fruitless  offer  was  made  by 
them  of  twelve  thousand  ducats  for  the  revocation  of  legislation 
on  the  subject.^ 

To  crown  all  this,  the  Suprema,  in  1657,  reached  the  audacity 
of  arguing  that  the  right  of  familiars  to  bear  arms  was  impre- 
scriptible and  could  not  be  abrogated  by  any  prince,  for  it  would 
impede  the  Inquisition  in  the  free  exercise  of  its  functions, 
wherefore  it  denied  that  any  competencia  could  be  formed  in 
such  cases;  the  secular  authorities  had  no  jurisdiction  and  there 
could  not  even  be  a  discussion  about  their  claim  to  interfere.^ 
Philip  IV  had  the  weakness  to  submit  to  these  extravagant  claims, 
in  1658,  and  to  decide  that  the  Suprema  alone  had  cognizance 
in  such  matters.  The  case  in  which  this  occurred  was  that  of 
Jaime  Espejo,  alcaide  of  the  penitential  prison  of  Valencia, 
.  arrested  for  carrying  pistols  and  it  has  interest  for  us  because  in 
it  the  inquisitor,  Don  Antonio  de  Ayala  Verganza,  argues  away 
all  the  royal  decrees  and  pragmaticas  as  not  meaning  what  they 
said  and  proves  it  by  citing  a  vast  number  of  cases  in  which, 
when  carried  up  to  the  king,  he  overruled  his  own  legislation, 
invariably  deciding  in  favor  of  the  Inquisition  and  against  his 
own  jurisdiction.      He   could   sometimes   be   brought   to  issue 

dia  y  de  noche,  y  mandamos  en  vertud  de  santa  obediencia  y  so  pena  de  excom- 
union  mayor  y  de  cincuenta  mil  mrs.  para  gastos  desto  Santo  Oficio,  d  todas  las 
dichas  justicias  y  a  sus  alguaciles,  executores  y  ministros  no  os  toman  las  dichas 
armas  ni  os  quebranten  los  dichos  privilegios  y  exempciones  de  que  los  dichos 
familiares  pueden  y  deben  gozar,  con  sus  personas  y  bienes,  ni  sobre  ello  os 
molesten  ni  ynquieten  en  manera  alguna." 

1  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  8,  n.  2,  fol.  407;  Leg.  9, 
n.  1,  fol.  436,  476,  499. 

^  This  was  sound  inquisitorial  law,  as  the  Suprema  proved  by  citing  the 
authorities.  See,  for  instance,  Pegnse  Comment.  105  in  Eymerici  Director.  P. 
ni  and  Bordoni  Sacrum  Tribunal,  cap.  40,  Q,  16,  n.  24. 


Chap.  Ill]  BEARING  ARMS  411 

wholesome  general  regulations,  but,  when  it  came  to  their  exe- 
cution, the  ever-present  dread  of  interfering  with  the  service 
of  God  overwhelmed  him/ 

Yet  Philip  promptly  reversed  himself  for,  in  a  despairing 
effort  to  put  an  end  to  these  interminable  quarrels,  he  was 
induced  to  issue  a  royal  letter,  December  23,  1659,  declaring 
that  the  cognizance  of  infractions  of  the  laws  respecting  pro- 
hibited arms  lay  with  the  royal  jurisdiction  and  that  no  com- 
petencias  should  be  formed  in  these  cases.  When  this  letter 
was  alleged  by  the  royal  court,  in  the  case  then  pending  of  Joseph 
Navarro,  a  familiar  arrested  for  carrying  a  pistol,  the  Inquisition 
in  reply  airily  cast  aside  the  pragmatica  of  1613,  and  its  con- 
firmation in  1633,  by  asserting  that  both  before  and  after  those 
laws  it  had  always  exercised  jurisdiction  over  these  cases,  as 
was  notorious  to  every  one — which  was  all  doubtless  true.  As 
for  the  recent  letter  of  1659,  it  had  not  been  issued  with  the  assent 
of  the  Suprema;  being  thus  irregularly  issued  it  should  not  be 
regarded  as  vahd,  until  the  king  should  be  supphcated  to  modify 
it,  and  imtil  this  was  done  the  accused  should  be  surrendered  to 
it  or  he  could  be  released  under  bail  to  both  jurisdictions.^  The 
vacillating  monarch  probably  yielded  again;  whether  he  did  so 
or  not  mattered  little  to  the  Holy  Office,  which  regarded  his 
decrees  so  lightly.  The  miserable  business  of  quarrelling  over 
the  multiplication  of  the  laws  went  on  and,  in  1691,  Carlos  II 
found  it  necessary  again  to  prohibit  the  carrying  of  pistols  and 
armas  cartas  and  to  deprive  offenders  of  their  claims  to  jurisdic- 
tion, even  if  they  were  familiars  or  salaried  officials  of  the  Inqui- 
sition.^ 

Several  cases  in  the  earher  years  of  PhiHp  V  seem  to  indicate 
that  this  matter  was  an  exception  to  the  general  hmitation  of 
the  privileges  of  the  Holy  Office  and  that  there  was  a  tendency 
to  admit  its  claims."  Their  final  extinction,  however,  was  not 
far  off.  In  1748,  Fernando  VI  prohibited  all  officials  of  tribunals, 
including  the  Inquisition,  from  carrying  cut-and-thrust  weapons 
of  any  kind;  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  the  enforcement  of  this 
was  reserved  for  the  secular  courts  and  all  claims  to  juero 
were  abohshed.    He  confirmed  and  extended  this  by  proclama- 

»  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  3,  fol.  49-69. 

*  Ibidem. 

»  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  R,  102,  fol.  142. 

*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  3,  fol.  49,  59,  64. 


412  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

tions  of  1749,  1751  and  1754,  with  penalties  of  six  years  in  the 
mines  for  commoners  and  six  years'  service  in  presidio  for  nobles. 
In  another  of  1757  he  regretted  the  non-observance  of  these 
laws  and  ordered  their  irremissible  enforcement  without  privi- 
lege of  fuero.  This  legislation  was  supplemented  by  Carlos  III, 
in  1761,  who  included  in  the  prohibition  all  fire-arms  of  less  than 
four  palms  length  of  barrel,  although  he  conceded  to  gentlemen 
the  use  of  holster  pistols  when  on  horseback  but  not  when  on 
mule-back/  Yet  the  Inquisition  continued  to  issue  the  old 
form  of  commissions  granting  unhmited  license,  until  the  magis- 
trates of  Seville  and  Alcala  la  Real  refused  to  recognize  them 
when,  in  1777,  it  admitted  its  altered  position  by  a  mochfication 
which  granted  the  right  to  carry  non-prohibited  weapons,  but 
only  when  on  duty  for  the  Holy  Office,  and  contented  itself 
with  exhorting  the  secular  authorities  not  to  interfere  with  this.^ 

In  somewhat  ludicrous  contrast  with  the  belligerent  spirit, 
indicated  by  the  earnest  desire  to  carry  arms,  was  the  claim 
that  all  connected  with  the  Inquisition  were  exempt  from  mihtary 
service.  In  its  relations  with  the  State  the  Holy  Office  recog- 
nized no  duties  of  citizenship;  it  only  claimed  privileges.  That 
the  salaried  officials,  regularly  employed  in  the  tribunals,  should 
enjoy  such  exemptions  was  merely  in  accordance  with  old  custom, 
for  a  law  of  Juan  II,  in  1432,  specifically  released  from  the  obli- 
gation of  service  nearly  all  officials,  including  even  physicians, 
surgeons  and  schoolmasters.^  That  this  should  apply  to  the 
Inquisition  seems  to  have  been  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course 
in  its  early  days  but,  in  1560,  the  corregidor  of  Cordova  sum- 
moned the  officials  and  familiars  to  appear  in  the  musters; 
they  all  claimed  exemption,  when  the  inquisitor-general  upheld 
the  appeal  of  the  officials  but  denied  that  of  the  familiars. 
Similar  questions  arose  in  Murcia  in  1563  and  1575,  in  which 
a  similar  distinction  was  drawn. ^  In  Valencia,  the  famifiars  had 
probably  been  more  successful,  for  an  article  in  the  Concordia 
of  1568  provides  that  they  must  serve  their  turns  in  guarding 
the  coasts  and  that  inquisitors  shall  not  defend  them  in  seeking 


'  Novis.  Recop.,  Libro  xii,  Tit.  xix,  leyes  16-19. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  15,  n.  11,  fol  45. 
'  Nueva  Recop.  Libro  vi,  Tit.  iv,  ley  7. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  979,  fol.  26. — Bibl.  nacional,  MSS., 
D,  118,  fol.  20. 


Chap   III]  MILITARY  SERVICE 


413 


exemptions  under  pretext  of  their  office/  The  same  question 
arose  in  Majorca  and  was  settled  by  a  law  providing  that  famil- 
iars refusing  to  perform  guard-duty  on  their  appointed  days 
could  be  compelled  by  the  royal  officials.^  Thus  by  common 
consent  at  this  time  salaried  officials  were  exempted  while  the 
claims  of  familiars  were  rejected. 

In  the  troubles  of  the  seventeenth  century,  when  the  very 
existence  of  Spain  was  threatened,  the  question  as  to  officials 
as  well  as  familiars  came  up  again  and  the  Suprema  sought  to 
protect  both  classes.  In  1636  and  1638,  the  corregidors  of 
various  cities  refused  to  except  the  officials  when  making  up  the 
lists  for  conscription,  but  Philip  IV  decided  that  they  were  ex- 
empt.' As  the  danger  increased,  in  1640,  with  the  rebellions  in 
Catalonia  and  Portugal,  and  the  resources  of  the  kingdom  were 
strained  to  the  utmost,  all  claims  were  disregarded.  By  a  cedula 
of  September  7,  1641,  PhiHp  declared  this  to  be  a  religious  war, 
as  the  rebels  were  allied  with  nations  infected  with  heresy.  In- 
quisitor-general Sotomayor  was  required  to  summon  all  officials 
and  familiars  to  organize  and  serve  and  was  clothed  with  power 
to  enforce  it.  No  protest  was  made  against  this,  for  it  was  a 
financial  rather  than  a  military  move;  arrangements  were  made 
to  commute  service  for  cash  and  the  Suprema  was  thus  aided 
in  meeting  the  royal  demands  for  contributions.* 

This  was  only  a  temporary  truce.  Phifip,  in  a  letter  of  Febru- 
ary 22,  1644,  to  Inquisitor-general  Arce  y  Reynoso,  reported 
that  the  attitude  of  the  officials  had  excited  much  dissatisfaction 
in  GaHcia;  he  therefore  ordered  that  no  exemptions  be  admitted 
and  no  excuses  be  received.  To  this  the  Suprema  responded 
with  bitter  complaints  that  in  Saragossa  the  lot  had  fallen  on  a 
messenger  of  the  tribunal  and  the  widow  of  a  notary,  who  were 
told  that  they  must  furnish  substitutes,  all  of  which  was  in  viola- 
tion of  the  privileges  of  the  Inquisition,  crippfing  it  in  its  pious 
labors  so  essential  to  the  faith  and  reducing  it  in  popular  esteem 
to  a  level  with  other  institutions.  Unstable  as  usual  where  the 
Holy  Office  was  concerned,  Philip  abandoned  his  position  and 
admitted  that  salaried  officials  were  not  Hable  to  serve  or  to 

1  Valencia  Concordia  of  1568,  Art.  14  (MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130). 
'  Ordinacions  y  Sumari  dels  Privilegis  etc.  del  Regne  de  Mallorca,  p.  323  (Mal- 
lorca,  1663). 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  36,  fol.  92,  98. 
*  Ibidem,  Libro  49,  fol.  240;  Libro  23,  fol.  42. 


414  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

furnish  substitutes,  which  the  Suprema  promptly  conveyed  to 
the  tribunals,  cautioning  them  not  to  employ  excommunication 
in  collisions  with  the  royal  officials  until  after  obtaining  its  per- 
mission/ 

Even  in  this  hour  of  supreme  need  the  habiUty  of  famiUars 
was  contested.  Philip  endeavored  to  placate  the  Suprema  by 
assigning  them  to  garrison  duty,  but  it  remonstrated,  asserting 
that  the  Inquisition  could  not  perform  its  functions  if  wholly 
deprived  of  them,  and  the  cause  of  rehgion  was  higher  than  any 
other.  It  therefore  asked  that  no  place  should  be  left  without 
one,  in  small  towns  there  should  be  two  and  in  larger  places 
four.  To  this  Philip  assented,  on  concUtion  that  those  exempted 
should  contribute  to  those  who  served,  but  the  Suprema  de- 
murred; every  one  could  avoid  service  who  could  pay  the  assess- 
ment, so  this  would  be  giving  the  famihars  no  special  privileges; 
there  could  be  no  question  that  favors  shown  to  the  Inquisition 
would  contribute  to  success  in  the  war,  for  experience  had  demon- 
strated that  the  more  sovereigns  had  fostered  it  the  more  fortu- 
nate they  had  been.  However  just  was  the  argument  it  was 
fruitless ;  Phihp  adhered  to  his  decision,  but  when  the  correspond- 
ing decrees  were  issued,  the  Council  of  Castile  remonstrated  in 
its  turn  and  the  distracted  monarch  was  involved  in  a  fresh 
discussion  between  the  two.^ 

The  Suprema  carried  its  point  that  those  exempted  should 
not  contribute  to  those  conscripted  and  the  arrangement  re- 
mained in  force.  It  was  repeated  in  a  carta  acordada  of  January 
14,  1668,  and,  when,  in  1681,  a  question  arose  in  Tembleque,  the 
Suprema  cautioned  the  Toledo  tribunal  not  to  issue  more  letters 
of  exemption  than  the  settlement  permitted,  in  order  to  avoid 
competencias  which  only  serve  to  render  the  Holy  Office  hateful 
and  to  imperil  its  other  privileges.^  Carlos  III  seems  to  have 
been  more  liberal  when,  in  1767,  he  included,  in  an  elaborate 
list  of  those  exempt  from  military  service,  the  ministers  and  de- 
pendents of  the  Inquisition  who  were  relieved  from  billets  under 
the  decree  of  May  26,  1728,  which,  it  will  be  remembered,  granted 
the  privilege  to  the  number  of  familiars  allowed  under  the  old 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  36,  fol.  5,  92. — MSS.  of  Royal  Library 
of  Copenhagen,  218b,  p.  222. 

2  Ibidem,  Libro  23,  fol.  42;  Libro  49,  fol.  270. 

»  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Legajo  498. — MSS.  of  Royal 
Library  of  Copenhagen,  218l>,  p.  182. 


Chap.  Ill]  BIGHT  TO  HOLD  PUBLIC  OFFICE  415 

Concordias.  Carlos  IV  was  more  exacting  for,  in  1800,  when 
regulating  the  conscription  in  minute  detail,  he  granted  exemption 
only  to  the  titular  officials  and  took  special  care  to  exclude  famil- 
iars and  other  dependents/  This  continued  to  the  end.  Sep- 
tember 14,  1818,  the  Suprema  communicated  to  the  tribunals 
a  decision  of  the  king  that,  in  order  to  secure  exemption  from 
conscription,  it  was  not  necessary  to  exhibit  a  royal  commission, 
but  one  from  the  inquisitor-general  or  Suprema  sufficed.^  Evi- 
dently the  local  tribunals  were  no  longer  allowed  to  issue  certifi- 
cates of  exemption. 

The  right  of  officials  and  familiars  to  hold  secular  offices 
raised  questions  that  caused  no  httle  debate.  It  was  evidently 
of  advantage  to  the  Inquisition  that  those  who  were  bound  to 
it  and  enjoyed  its  exemptions  should  be  in  positions  of  in- 
fluence where  they  could  guard  its  privileges  and  promote  their 
extension.  On  the  other  hand,  for  these  very  reasons,  the  people 
w^ere  jealous  of  office-holding  by  its  ministers  and  dreaded  to 
have  their  local  authorities  relieved  of  responsibility  through 
their  claim  on  the  juero  or  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition.  Had 
these  local  positions  been  elective,  popular  good  sense  could 
have  averted  the  danger,  but  they  were  awarded  by  lot,  the  names 
of  those  deemed  eligible  being  placed  in  a  holsa  or  bag — a  process 
known  as  insaculacion — and  drawn  forth.^ 

The  earliest  instance  I  have  met  of  a  refusal  to  include  officials 
of  the  Inquisition  among  the  eligibles  occurs  in  1503,  when 
Ferdinand  wrote  to  his  Lieutenant-general  of  Majorca  that  he 
was  astonished  to  learn  that  the  names  of  Pere  Prat,  his  son 
Pere  Prat,  Carman  Litra  and  Geronimo  Serma  had  not  been  in- 
sacculated  because  they  held  office  in  the  Inquisition;  it  should 
rather  be  a  recommendation;  they  must  not  be  thus  dishonored 
and  their  names  must  at  once  be  put  in  the  bolsa/  Doubtless 
Ferdinand's  watchfulness  preserved  this  privilege  for  officials 
during  his  life,  but  subsequently  popular  feeling  must  have 
manifested  itself  by  their  exclusion,  for,  in  1523,  Charles  V  for- 


1  No\as.  Recop.,  Lib.  vi,  Tit.  vi,  ley  7,  ?  2;  ley  14,  cap.  35,  U  -i,  28,  n.  7. 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  559. 

^  For  the  elaborate  process  of  insaculacion  in  Catalonia,  which  amounted,  in 
some  degree,  to  a  primar}'  election,  see  Capitols  de  Cort  de  1585,  cap.  5,  6,  71,  72 
(Barcelona,  1685,  fol.  5-9,  46). 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  67,  fol.  22;  Libro  68,  fol.  59. 


416  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

bade  it  in  an  edict  and  he  followed  this  by  a  special  pragmatica, 
May  30,  1524,  asserting  their  eligibility  to  public  office  in  all 
his  dominions  and  for  all  future  time,  under  pain  of  the  royal 
wrath  and  of  two  thousand  florins,  but  he  provided  that  they 
should  not  be  entitled  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition  for 
official  malfeasance/  Notwithstanding  this,  Philip  II  was  obliged 
to  issue  special  instructions  on  the  subject  to  Sardinia  in  1552 
and  to  Navarre  in  1558.^ 

In  this,  as  in  so  much  else,  the  Catalans  were  especially  in- 
tractable. Cortes  of  the  three  kingdoms  of  Aragon  were  held 
in  1553,  in  which  Catalonia  alone  took  up  the  matter  and 
adopted  a  law,  confirmed  by  Prince  PhiHp,  prescribing  that  no 
bayle  or  his  lieutenant,  or  judge,  or  scrivener  could  be  a  familiar, 
nor  could  he  accept  office  after  his  term  of  service  had  expired/ 
This  received  scant  obedience,  nor  did  the  Inquisition  pay  atten- 
tion to  the  clause  in  the  pragmatica  of  1524  depriving  it  of  cog- 
nizance of  official  malfeasance.  One  of  the  complaints  of  the 
royal  Audiencia  to  de  Soto  Salazar,  in  his  visitation  of  the 
Barcelona  tribunal  in  1566,  was  that  it  assumed  jurisdiction 
in  all  such  cases.  Salazar  recommended  that  this  should  be 
forbidden,  for  it  impeded  the  proper  administration  of  the 
towns,  and  officials  could  not  be  punished  for  violating  local 
ordinances  about  bread,  vineyards,  meadows,  breaking  irrigat- 
ing canals  to  water  their  lands,  and  multitudinous  other  derelic- 
tions.* 

Catalonia  refused  to  accept  the  Concordia  of  1568  and,  in  1585, 
the  Cortes  re-enacted  the  provisions  of  1553  in  an  enlarged  form, 
including  almost  all  offices,  and  subjecting  violation  to  a  penalty 
of  two  hundred  ducats,  which  was  confirmed  by  Phihp  11.^  This 
seems  to  have  been  enforced  for,  in  1586,  a  memorial  from  the 
Bishop  of  Segovia  says  that  in  Catalonia  the  names  of  all  officials 
of  the  Inquisition  were  removed  from  the  lists  of  eligibles,  that 
commissioners  and  familiars  were  resigning  and  that  every  day 
withdrawals  were  received  from  appHcants,  so  that  the  tribunal 
would  be  crippled  and  the  Cortes  could  have  contrived  nothing 


*  Portocarrero,  ojp.  cit.,  §  57. — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  68,  fol. 
61;  Libro  919,  fol.  59;  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Legajo  17,  fol.  60, 

'  Ibidem,  Libro  919,  fol.  58,  60,  65. 

^  Constitutions  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i.  Tit.  Ivi,  cap.  15. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  20. 

*  Constitutions  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  Ivi,  cap.  16. 


Chap.  Ill]  BIGHT  TO  HOLD  PUBLIC  OFFICE  417 

more  damaging/  The  Catalans  held  good,  despite  the  earnest 
efforts  of  the  Holy  Office,  which  declared  long  afterwards  that 
this  was  the  severest  blow  that  it  had  ever  received.  In  the 
Cortes  of  1599  the  battle  was  renewed  after  elaborate  prepara- 
tions by  the  inquisitors.  On  June  30th  the  king  presented  a 
series  of  articles,  in  response  to  those  submitted  to  him  by  the 
Cortes,  and  among  them  was  one  declaring  officials  and  familiars 
eligible  to  all  offices,  but  the  Catalans  would  have  none  of  it. 
In  the  elaborate  memorial  presented  to  Clement  VIII  by  the 
Suprema  against  the  work  of  the  Cortes,  it  complained  bitterly 
of  the  laws  of  1553  and  1585  as  diminishing  notably  the  authority 
of  the  Inquisition  and  causing  great  lack  of  officials,  so  many 
having  ignominiously  resigned,  while  others  could  not  be  found 
to  replace  them.^ 

Again,  when  the  Cortes  were  about  to  assemble  in  1626,  the 
Barcelona  tribunal  implored  the  Suprema  to  use  its  utmost 
exertions  for  the  repeal  of  the  law  of  1585,  for  no  person  of 
consideration  would  accept  office  and  it  was  obliged  to  appoint 
those  of  low  condition,  which  was  fatal  to  its  authority.  The 
Cortes  yielded  in  so  far  as  to  adopt  an  article  throwing  open 
the  offices,  provided  incumbents  were  justiciable  by  the  civil 
courts  for  a  long  series  of  offences,  but  the  whole  legislation  of 
the  Cortes  came  to  naught  through  lack  of  the  royal  confirma- 
tion.' When  the  question  was  coming  up  again  in  the  Cortes 
of  1632,  earnest  appeals  were  made  to  the  Suprema  to  have  the 
obnoxious  law  of  1585  repealed.  The  condition  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion in  Catalonia  was  represented  as  most  deplorable  by  reason 
of  it.  In  a  memorial  to  the  king  it  was  stated  that  in  Barcelona 
there  were  but  four  or  five  familiars,  and  they  were  mechanics, 
ineligible  to  public  office ;  there  was  not  a  single  advocate  of  the 
accused,  nor  an  ecclesiastical  consultor,  so  greedy  was  every 
one  for  public  office.  Throughout  the  principality  there  was 
the  same  dearth — familiars  only  in  miserable  villages,  destitute 
of  tempting  positions,  and  those  were  of  base  condition,  for  in 
fact  the  barons  would  endure  none  other  in  their  lands.  The 
Suprema  was  urged  to  bring  the  matter  before  the  Rota  and  it 
submitted  the  question  to  its  fiscal,  but  he  wisely  reported  that, 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  uhi  sup.,  fol.  56. 

*  Ibidem,  fol.  2,  28,  5. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  87,  10, 
92,  9. 

27 


418  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

although  a  favorable  result  was  to  be  anticipated,  yet  it  was  not 
expedient  to  set  the  example  of  recourse  to  Rome  which  might 
result  in  other  matters  being  carried  thither  with  damage  to  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  Office/ 

Thus  Catalan  pertinacity  triumphed.  When,  in  1667,  Pedro 
Momparler,  familiar  at  Alconer,  asked  permission  to  resign,  in 
order  to  accept  the  office  of  bayle,  and  his  request  was  referred 
to  the  Suprema,  it  replied  that  it  should  be  denied  on  account  of 
the  evil  influence  of  his  example,  but  it  added  that  if  he  should 
renounce  his  famiUarship  before  the  royal  justice  for  the  term 
of  his  office,  the  inquisitors  should  pretend  ignorance.^ 

In  Majorca,  frequent  alterations  of  the  law  show  that  it  was 
subject  to  active  debate  and  that  preponderance  shifted  from 
one  side  to  the  other.  In  1637  it  was  decided  that  none  of  those 
connected  with  the  Inquisition  could  hold  public  office;  then,  in 
1643,  they  were  allowed  to  do  so,  in  positions  where  they  had 
not  to  vote  or  to  give  counsel;  again,  in  1660,  the  prohibition 
was  made  absolute;  then,  in  1662,  royal  letters  of  January  11th 
and  March  4th  removed  the  prohibition,  provided  they  would 
previously  renounce  all  claim  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion. These  letters  afford  a  remarkable  illustration  of  the  vacil- 
lation of  the  monarch  and  of  the  extent  to  which  bureaucracy 
had  crippled  his  autocracy — only  this  time  it  was  the  Council 
of  Aragon  which  imitated  the  methods  of  the  Suprema.  The 
latter  body  was  dissatisfied  with  the  arrangement  and  addressed 
to  the  king  a  consulta,  April  5,  1663,  asking  its  suspension  and 
that  a  junta  of  the  two  councils  should  be  called  to  consider 
the  subject.  Phihp  promptly  acceded  and,  on  April  10th, 
ordered  the  Council  of  Aragon  to  write  to  that  effect  to  the  \'iceroy. 
The  command  was  not  obeyed  and,  on  September  19th,  the 
Suprema  asked  him  to  remedy  the  omission,  whereupon  he  asked 
the  council  to  state  its  reasons  and,  on  its  doing  so,  he  again 
ordered  it,  October  3d,  to  execute  his  decree  of  April  10th.  It 
was  still  recalcitrant  and,  on  March  19,  1664,  the  Suprema 
represented  the  delay  to  the  king  who  the  next  day  called  upon 
the  council  to  render  an  exact  account  of  what  it  had  done.  It 
replied  that  in  conformity  with  his  commands  it  had  written 
on  October  3,  1663,  copy  of  which  it  enclosed.  This  proved  to 
be  merely  copies  of  the  letters  of  1662  which  had  given  rise  to 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  2,  9,  14. 

*  Libro  XIII  de  Cartas,  fol.  215  (MSS.  of  American  Philosophical  Society). 


Chap.  Ill]  BIGHT  TO  HOLD  PUBLIC  OFFICE  419 

the  debate,  showing  that  it  had  dehberately  nullified  his  orders. 
In  view  of  all  this  the  Suprema,  July  24,  1664,  asked  the  king 
to  insist  on  literal  compliance  and  that  a  copy  of  the  despatch 
of  the  Council  of  Aragon  to  the  viceroy  should  be  furnished  to 
it.  This  proved  to  be  merely  a  duplicate  of  that  of  October  13, 
1663,  with  the  date  altered  to  April  6,  1664.  Then  the  Suprema 
again  asked  the  king  peremptorily  to  order  exact  obedience 
and  he  replied  that  he  had  done  so.  Meanwhile  the  Viceroy 
and  the  inquisitor  of  Majorca  had  been  playing  at  cross-purposes 
in  consequence  of  the  contradictory  despatches  received  by  each.^ 
Such  a  method  of  carrying  on  an  organized  government  seems 
incredible  and,  trivial  as  was  the  question  at  issue,  a  case  such 
as  this  throws  light  on  one  of  the  causes  of  Spanish  decadence. 
The  question  itself,  after  all  this  trouble,  apparently  remained 
unsettled,  for,  in  1673,  there  was  a  competencia  over  Gabriel 
Berga,  a  knight  of  Santiago  and  a  familiar,  when  the  tribunal 
contended  that  he  could  not  renounce  its  jurisdiction.^ 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  follow  out  in  detail  the  vicissitudes 
of  this  matter  in  the  other  provinces  of  Spain,  where  it  gave 
abundant  occasion  for  quarrels  conducted  with  customary  vehe- 
mence. It  seems  to  have  settled  itself  into  the  rule  that  officials 
and  familiars  were  efigible  to  public  office  but  that,  during  their 
terms  of  service,  they  were  not  entitled  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Inquisition.  Such,  we  are  told  in  1632,  was  the  practice  in 
Castile,  Aragon  and  Valencia,^  Yet  still  there  were  disputes  for, 
about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  formula  is  given 
for  use  when  a  f amihar  is  prevented  from  taking  office.  This  sets 
forth  at  much  length  that,  if  familiars  are  refused  office,  no  one 
will  take  the  position,  which  will  inflict  great  detriment  on  the 
faith;  it  cites  the  royal  cedulas,  it  sets  aside  opposing  arguments 
by  showing  that  for  all  malfeasance  in  office  the  familiar  will 
be  subject  to  the  royal  jurisdiction  and  finally  it  orders  his 
immediate  induction  in  his  post  under  penalty  of  excommunica- 
tion and  of  five  hundred  ducats ;  no  further  notice  will  be  given 
and  all  further  action  will  be  published  in  the  halls  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, which  will  be  full  legal  notice  to  all  parties  concerned.* 


^  Ordinacions  del  Reyne  de  Mallorca,  p.  297.— Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisi- 
cion,  Libro  68,  fol.  98;  Libro  69,  fol.  97. 
2  Ibidem,  Libro  68,  fol.  32,  97,  224. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  9. 
*  Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  40  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  122). 


420  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

I  have  met  with  no  further  legislation  on  the  subject  and  pre- 
sumably some  arrangement  of  this  kind  was  in  force  to  the  end. 

It  was  highly  inconsistent  but,  at  the  same  time,  thoroughly 
in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  Inquisition  in  its  dealings  with 
the  public,  that  while  it  vindicated  so  energetically  the  right 
of  its  officials  to  hold  honorable  and  lucrative  posts,  it  claimed 
for  them  the  privilege  to  refuse  to  serve  in  those  which  were 
onerous.  In  the  municipalities  there  were  a  certain  number  of 
these  latter,  entailing  unremunerative  labor  and  responsibility, 
which  no  one  could  refuse  to  accept  when  his  name  was  drawn 
from  the  bolsa.  The  officials  claimed  to  be  insaculated  for  the 
desirable  positions  but  not  for  the  undesirable  ones.  That  such 
a  claim  could  be  made  and  sustained  is  a  forcible  illustration  of 
the  power  of  the  Inquisition. 

There  is  no  allusion  to  this  in  the  earlier  Concordias  and  no 
specific  grant  that  I  have  been  able  to  find.  It  seems  to  have 
been  merely  a  gratuitous  assumption  on  the  part  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, asserted  with  its  customary  persistence.  A  noteworthy 
case  growing  out  of  it  occurred,  in  1622,  in  the  town  of  Lorca 
(Murcia)  where  a  familiar  refused  to  serve  in  the  office  of  collector 
of  the  alcavala,  or  tax  on  sales,  and  was  imprisoned  for  contu- 
macy. The  inquisitors  of  Murcia  demanded  his  liberation  and 
excommunicated  the  alcalde  mayor  for  refusing  to  obey.  This 
failing,  they  prepared  to  arrest  him  and  called  upon  the  corregidor 
of  Murcia,  Pedro  de  Porres,  for  assistance.  On  his  refusal  they 
excommunicated  him  and  then  laid  an  interdict  on  the  city  of 
Murcia.  The  citizens  appealed  to  their  bishop.  Fray  Antonio 
Trejo,  who  remonstrated  with  the  tribunal  and,  finding  this  un- 
availing, issued  an  edict  declaring  the  interdict  invalid.  Bishops 
were  not  subject  to  inquisitorial  jurisdiction,  even  for  heresy, 
without  special  papal  faculties,  but  the  inquisitor-general,  Andres 
Pacheco,  was  the  most  audacious  and  inexorable  assertor  of  in- 
quisitorial omnipotence  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  condemn  the 
episcopal  edict,  to  publish  the  condemnation  in  all  the  churches, 
to  fine  the  bishop  in  eight  thousand  ducats  and  to  summon  him, 
under  pain  of  four  thousand  more,  to  appear  within  twenty  days 
and  answer  to  the  action  brought  against  him  by  the  fiscal  as  an 
impeder  of  the  Inquisition.  The  bishop  and  chapter  sent  the 
dean  and  a  canon  to  represent  them,  but,  without  a  hearing, 
they  were  thrown  incomunicado  into  the  secret  prison,  excom- 


Chap.  Ill]  BIGHT  TO  REFUSE  OFFICE  421 

municated  and  the  censure  published  in  all  the  churches.  The 
inquisitors  imprisoned  the  parish  priest  of  Santa  Catalina  for 
disregarding  the  interdict  and  the  whole  ecclesiastical  body  of 
Murcia  became  involved.  Finally,  through  the  intervention  of 
the  king  and  the  pope,  the  bishop  was  absolved,  but  the  Inquisi- 
tion reaped  a  rich  harvest  of  fines.  Those  of  the  bishop,  dean 
and  some  of  the  canons  were  kept  by  the  Suprema,  while  the 
local  tribunal,  in  addition  to  inflicting  terms  of  exile,  of  from 
one  to  eight  years,  secured  from  Jose  Lucas,  the  episcopal  secre- 
tary, a  thousand  ducats,  from  Alonso  Pedriiian,  the  fiscal,  eight 
hundred  and,  from  thirteen  other  priests  and  dignitaries  of  the 
church,  sums  ranging  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty — in  all, 
an  aggregate  of  3272  ducats.^ 

A  claim  enforced  so  relentlessly  was  dangerous  to  dispute  and 
even  the  Aragonese  Concordia  of  1646,  which  registered  a  triumph 
over  the  Holy  Office,  admitted  the  right  of  salaried  officials  and 
familiars  to  decline  onerous  offices.^  In  time,  however,  there 
seems  to  have  come  a  slight  modification  of  the  claim.  About 
1750  we  have  the  formula  of  a  mandate,  issued  at  the  instance 
of  a  familiar,  forbidding,  under  pain  of  excommunication  and 
of  two  hundred  ducats,  the  authorities  of  a  town  from  including 
him  among  those  liable  to  serve  in  any  of  the  minor  offices, 
nor  in  any  of  the  more  important  ones  until  every  other  inhabi- 
tant has  served  his  turn.^ 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  the  origin  of  the  claim  that  the 
buildings  of  the  Inquisition  and  the  houses  of  its  officials  were 
sanctuaries  into  which  the  officers  of  justice  could  not  penetrate 
without  special  permission.  The  asylum  afforded  to  criminals 
in  churches  was  an  old  established  practice  throughout  Europe 
to  which  Spain  was  no  exception.  Even  as  late  as  1737  the  papal 
sanction  was  deemed  necessary  to  except  from  this  certain 
crimes,  such  as  murder,  highway  robbery  and  high  treason.* 
Asylum  was  also  afforded  by  the  feudal  rights  which  debarred 
royal  officers  of  justice  from  intruding  on  lands  of  nobles,  and 
the  withdrawal  of  this  right  in  Granada  is  cited  as  one  of  the 


*  Llorente,  Hist.  crft.  Cap.  xxvi,  Art.  ii,  n.  11.— Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisi- 
cion,  Libro  918,  fol.  1053. 

*  Fueros  y  Actos  de  Corte  en  Zaragoza,  1645-6,  pp.  11-12  (Zaragoza,  1647) 
'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299. 

*  Novls.  Recop.,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  iv,  ley  4. 


422  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

causes  of  the  agitation  leading  to  the  rebellion  of  1568/  In 
Aragon  this  was  developed  so  far  that  a  law  of  Jaime  I,  in  the 
Cortes  of  Huesca  in  1247,  which  still  continued  in  force,  gave 
to  the  houses  of  infanzones,  or  gentlemen,  the  same  right  of 
asylum  as  that  possessed  by  churches.^ 

It  is  therefore  somewhat  remarkable  that  the  claim  of  afford- 
ing asylum  was  not  made  at  the  outset  by  the  Inquisition,  espe- 
cially in  view  of  the  importance  attached  to  the  secrecy  which 
shrouded  all  its  operations.  Yet,  until  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  such  claims  when  made  were  authoritatively  repucUated. 
Inquisitor-general  Tavera  writes,  September  3,  1540,  a  sharp 
letter  to  the  inquisitors  of  Seville  saying  that  he  is  informed  that 
recently  certain  murderers  had  been  received  and  protected  in 
the  castle  of  Triana,  occupied  by  the  tribunal,  and  that  the 
officers  of  the  royal  justice  had  not  been  allowed  to  search  for 
them;  the  punishment  of  delinquents  should  be  in  no  way  im- 
peded and  no  occasion  be  given  for  complaint;  the  gates  of  the 
castle  must  be  kept  shut  so  that  criminals  cannot  take  refuge 
there.'  So,  in  1546,  among  instructions  from  the  Suprema  to 
the  tribunal  of  Granada,  is  an  order  that  no  criminals  or  debtors 
shall  find  refuge  in  the  Inquisition,  nor  be  allowed  to  sleep  there 
nor  between  the  gates;  the  janitor  must  eject  them  and,  if  they 
will  not  go,  report  it  to  the  inquisitors  for  proper  action.^  This 
shows  that  the  abuse  was  commencing  but  that  it  was  disap- 
proved and  the  same  is  seen  in  the  Valencia  Concordia  of  1554, 
which  sa3^s  that,  as  the  Inquisition  has  no  privileges  as  an  asylum, 
it  cannot  protect  those  who  take  refuge  there.^ 

Evidently  the  local  tribunals  were  claiming  a  right  which  the 
central  authority  disallowed;  they  were  moreover  claiming  it 
not  only  for  the  building  of  the  Inquisition  but  for  the  houses 
of  officials  and  familiars.  Among  the  malfeasances  of  the  Barce- 
lona tribunal,  reported  in  1567  by  de  Soto  Salazar,  were  cases  of 
this  kind.  When  the  bayle  of  Perpignan  sought  to  arrest  some 
culprits  they  were  sheltered  by  Pedro  de  Roca,  a  familiar,  in 
his  house  and  he  resisted  the  bayle  who  came  with  a  posse  to 


*  Mendoza,  Guerra  de  Granada,  p.  71  (Ed.  Ribadeneira). 

'  Fueros  del  Reyno  de  Aragon,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  De  his  qui  ad  ecclesias  (Zaragoza, 
1624). 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Ivibro  13,  fol.  120. 

*  Ibidem,  Libre  926,  fol.  33. 

*  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130. 


Chap.  Ill]  BIGHT  OF  ASYLUM  423 

arrest  them;  Roca  accused  the  bayle  and  his  men  for  this;  they 
were  imprisoned  for  a  long  while  by  the  Barcelona  inquisitors  and 
were  condemned  to  fines  and  exile.  So  when  the  bayle  of  Sens,  with 
a  posse,  broke  into  the  house  of  Vicente  Valele,  who  was  merely  a 
temporary  commissioner,  to  arrest  some  culprits  who  had  taken 
refuge  there,  he  accused  them  and  they  were  all  imprisoned/ 

The  rapidity  with  which  the  abuse  developed  in  Valencia  is 
manifested  by  a  comparison  of  the  Concordias  of  1554  and  1568. 
The  former,  as  we  have  seen,  admits  that  the  Inquisition  could 
offer  no  asylum,  while  the  latter  is  obliged  to  forbid  the  lower 
officials  and  familiars  from  putting  the  arms  of  the  Inquisition 
on  their  houses;  all  such  must  be  removed  and  their  houses  shall 
not  have  immunity  from  the  officers  of  justice — evidently  the 
officials  found  profit  in  harboring  thieves  and  murderers  and 
the  tribunal  supported  them.^  In  Barcelona  a  sort  of  compromise 
was  reached  by  which,  on  application  to  the  tribunal,  one  of  its 
ministers  was  sent  with  the  offict^rs  of  justice  to  enter  houses  of 
officials  where  criminals  had  taken  refuge,  but  the  Cortes  of  1599 
complained  that  this  delay  afforded  time  for  escape  and,  in  the 
abortive  Concordia  enacted  there,  a  clause  provided  that  this 
should  not  be  necessary  and  that,  in  case  of  resistance,  houses 
could  be  entered.  It  shows  how  slow  was  the  Suprema  to  assert 
a  right  of  asylum  that,  in  its  protest  to  Clement  VIII,  it  accepts 
this  article  on  the  ground  that  the  Inquisition  never  has  impeded 
the  pursuit  and  arrest  of  malefactors.^  In  time,  however,  it 
overcame  these  scruples  and,  in  1632,  it  issued  repeated  orders 
that  the  officers  of  justice  should  not  be  allowed  to  enter  the 
houses  of  officials.  Phifip  IV  countermanded  this,  but  the 
Suprema  presented  a  consul ta  saying  that  there  was  no  objection 
when  the  pursuit  was  -flagrante  delicto;  prisoners,  however,  were 
frequently  confined  in  the  houses  of  officials  and  an  unhmited 
right  of  entry  might  be  abused  to  obtain  communication  with 
them  in  violation  of  the  all-important  secrecy  of  the  Holy  Office. 
As  usual,  the  vacillating  monarch  yielded  and,  in  1634,  issued  a 
decree  restricting  the  right  of  search  to  cases  of  hot  pursuit.* 


1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  20. 

*  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  28. — 
Constitutions  del  Cort  de  1599,  Const.  50  (Barcelona,  1635,  fol.  xvii). 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  32,  fol.  109.— Archive  hist,  nacienal, 
Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Leg.  498. 


424  PRIVILEGES  AND  EXEMPTIONS  [Book  II 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  Aragonese  Concordia  of  1646,  im- 
posed by  the  Cortes  on  Philip,  which  in  so  many  ways  restricted 
the  privileges  of  the  Inquisition,  recognized  this  doubtful  one 
in  the  fullest  manner.  As  the  ministers,  it  says,  of  so  holy  an  office 
should  enjoy  certain  honors  and  pre-eminence,  it  orders  that 
they,  including  familiars,  shall  have  as  to  their  houses  the  same 
privileges  as  caballeros  and  hijosdalgo — which,  as  we  have  seen, 
included  the  right  of  asylum/  As  regards  the  bmldings  of  the 
Inquisition  itself,  a  scandalous  case  occurring  in  1638  shows  how 
far  it  had  travelled  since  Tavera  rebuked  the  tribunal  of  Seville. 
In  Majorca  the  Count  of  Ayamano,  at  the  head  of  a  band  of 
assassins,  committed  the  sacrilege  of  escalading  the  walls  of  a 
convent  for  the  purpose  of  murdering  his  wife  who  had  sought 
refuge  there.  Philip  ordered  every  effort  made  to  arrest  him  and 
his  accomplices,  but  he  escaped  to  Barcelona  with  eight  of  them 
and  all  found  asylum  in  the  Inquisition,  in  the  apartments  of  his 
uncle,  the  Inquisitor  Cotoner,  It  affords  a  curious  insight  into 
the  conditions  of  the  period  to  see  that  this  created  a  situation 
impenetrable  to  the  highest  authorities  of  the  land.  Philip 
called  a  junta  of  two  members  each  of  the  Suprema  and  Council 
of  Aragon  to  devise  how  the  criminals  could  be  captured  without 
scandal  or  quarrel  with  the  Inquisition.  The  result  of  their  delib- 
erations seems  to  be  a  letter  from  the  Suprema  to  Cotoner  telling 
him  that,  if  he  wanted  to  help  his  nephew,  it  should  be  outside 
and  not  inside  of  the  Inquisition,  in  order  to  avoid  the  troubles 
ensuing  on  an  attempt  of  the  royal  officers  to  remove  him.  The 
imperturbable  Cotoner  was  not  to  be  scared  by  this  gentle  warning 
and  a  fortnight  later  the  Suprema  enclosed  to  him  a  royal  decree 
telling  him  that  he  would  see  the  untoward  results  of  sheltering 
his  nephew.  As  complete  satisfaction  was  demanded  he  was 
ordered  to  report  in  full  all  details,  including  his  motives  in 
harboring  one  who  was  put  to  the  ban,  especially  when  the  latter 
was  not  a  familiar.^  Unfortunately  we  do  not  know  how  the 
affair  ended,  but  when  the  Suprema,  in  place  of  dismissing  Cotoner, 
inquired  as  to  his  motives,  we  may  assume  that  the  asylum  offered 
by  the  Inquisition  saved  the  forfeit  life  of  the  criminal  by  some 
compromise. 

The  immunity  of  the  houses  of  officials  became  generally 
recognized,  with  the  proviso  that  permission  of  search  would  be 

*  Fueros  y  Actos  de  Corte,  p.  11  (Zaragoza,  1647). 

*  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  X,  157,  fol.  244. 


Chap.  Ill]  EIGHT  OF  ASYLUM  425 

granted  by  inquisitors  if  special  application  was  made  to  them, 
when  they  preserved  their  jurisdiction  by  sending  one  of  their 
people  to  accompany  the  officers  of  justice.  An  exception  which 
proved  the  rule  however  was  made  in  favor  of  the  administrators 
01  the  tax  on  tobacco,  to  whom  general  letters  were  given  em- 
powering them  to  search  the  houses  of  officials  for  contraband 
tobacco.  Even  this  was  argued  away  by  the  Suprema  in  1728, 
when  it  asserted  that  semi-proof  in  advance  was  necessary  to 
justify  search  and  full  proof  to  give  jurisdiction.^ 

It  is  evident  from  the  above  that  the  Holy  Office,  with  its 
claims  for  special  privileges  and  exemptions  and  its  methods  for 
enforcing  their  recognition,  was  a  very  disturbing  factor  in  the 
body  politic.  Yet  the  greatest  source  of  conflict  lay  in  the  ex- 
clusive jurisdiction  which  it  sought  to  establish  over  all  who 
were  connected  with  it,  not  only  between  themselves  but  between 
them  and  the  rest  of  the  community.  This  engrossed  so  large 
a  portion  of  its  activity  and  was  the  cause  of  such  perpetually 
recurring  trouble  that  its  consideration  requires  a  chapter  to 
itself. 

*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  3,  fol.  16,  406. — 
Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  R,  102,  fol.  169. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS. 

The  principal  source  of  strife  between  the  Inquisition  and  the 
other  authorities  arose  from  its  claim  to  exclusive  competence 
in  all  cases  involving  those  connected  with  it  and  their  dependents. 
This  gave  rise  to  perpetual  conflicts,  conducted  with  the  utmost 
tenacity,  which  filled  the  land  with  confusion  and,  in  many  cases, 
rendered  the  administration  of  justice  a  mockery.  For  two 
centuries  the  monarchs  vainly  endeavored  to  keep  the  peace  by 
repeated  efforts  to  define  the  boundaries  between  the  rival  juris- 
dictions and  the  methods  of  settling  their  differences.  The  tire- 
less efforts,  on  the  one  side,  of  the  Holy  Office  to  extend  its 
authority  and  increase  its  emoluments  caused  it  constantly  to 
violate  compacts,  while  the  jealousy  of  the  civil  magistracy  on 
the  other  and  its  natural  desire  to  repel  intrusion  rendered  it 
prompt  to  use  whatever  means  lay  in  its  power.  The  struggle 
was  unequal  against  the  superior  weapons  furnished  by  papal 
faculties  and  against  the  royal  favor  which  was  with  the  Inqui- 
sition, but  the  conflict  was  maintained  with  marvellous  con- 
stancy, supported  by  popular  sympathy,  and  the  time  of  the 
king  and  his  advisers  was  frittered  away  in  deciding  a  continuous 
stream  of  petty  quarrels,  growing  out  of  trivial  incidents,  but 
assuming  portentous  proportions  through  the  violent  methods 
which  had  aggravated  them. 

To  understand  the  claim  of  the  Inquisition  to  exclusive  cog- 
nizance of  the  cases  of  its  subordinates  it  is  necessary  to  bear 
in  mind  the  benefit  of  clergy,  through  which,  from  the  early 
ndddle  ages,  all  clerics  were  exempted  from  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  laity  and  were  subjected  wholly  to  the  spiritual  courts. 
This  amounted  virtually  to  immunity  for  crime,  both  because 
those  courts  were  debarred  from  rendering  judgements  of  blood 
and  because  of  the  inevitable  favoritism  manifested  to  those 
of  their  own  cloth.^  As  civilization  advanced  the  disorders 
caused  by  a  class,  thus  emboldened  in  wrong-doing  by  impunity, 

»  I  have  considered  this  subject  in  some  detail  in  "Studies  in  Church  History," 
pp.  177  SM.  ^427) 


428  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

were  the  source  of  constant  solicitude  to  rulers  and  were  deplored 
by  right-thinking  churchmen.  In  this,  Spain  was  no  exception. 
In  a  project  of  instructions  drawn  up  by  a  Spanish  bishop  for 
the  delegates  to  the  Lateran  Council  in  1512,  the  crimes  and 
scandals  perpetrated  by  married  clerks  and  those  in  the  lower 
orders,  through  expectation  of  immunity,  are  dwelt  upon  as 
reasons  for  a  change;  there  were  daily  conflicts  between  the  spir- 
itual and  secular  courts,  leading  to  interdicts  cast  on  cities,  and 
some  universal  legislation  by  the  Church  was  desirable/  No 
such  remedy  was  adopted,  and  when  the  Council  of  Trent  gave 
promise  of  reform,  the  Spanish  prelates,  in  contrast  with  the 
Inquisition,  which  made  every  effort  to  extend  its  juriscUction 
over  offenders,  proposed  in  1562  to  the  council  that  married  clerks 
wearing  secular  habits  should  not  enjoy  protection  from  secular 
justice.^  In  1544,  Fernando  de  Aragon,  when  Viceroy  of  Valencia, 
declared  that  his  principal  trouble  lay  with  the  Church,  of  which 
the  chief  object  was  to  protect  evil-doers  and  liberate  them  from 
his  justice,  an  opinion  in  which  he  was  heartily  seconded  by  the 
saintly  Tomas  de  Vilanova,  then  recently  appointed  archbishop.^ 
Yet  the  marked  aversion  in  Spain  to  ecclesiastical  encroach- 
ment led  to  repeated  enactments  restraining  spiritual  jurisdic- 
tion within  strict  limits.  In  a  series  of  laws,  dating  from  the 
fourteenth  to  the  sixteenth  century,  Henry  II,  Juan  II,  Henry  IV, 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  and  Charles  V  endeavored  by  the  severest 
penalties  to  repress  its  inevitable  tendency  to  extend  itself, 
whether  by  seizure- of  the  persons  or  property  of  the  laity  or  by 
entertaining  cases  between  laymen.  Ferdinand  and  Isabella, 
in  1493,  even  threatened  half  confiscation  and  perpetual  exile 
from  Spain  for  all  who,  under  any  pretext,  aided  ecclesias- 
tical judges  in  taking  prisoners  from  secular  officials  or  who 
assisted  them  in  any  way.^  In  addition  to  this  was  the  recurso 
de  fuerza  through  which  appeal  lay  to  the  royal  courts  or  to  the 
Sala  de  Gobierno  whenever  the  spiritual  courts  refused  an  appeal 
or  heard  secular  cases  or  those  in  which  lavmen  were  concerned.* 


*  Breve  Memoria  (DoUinger,  Beitrage  zur  politischen,  kirchlichen  u.  Cultur- 
Geschichte,  III,  207). 

2  Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Trident.,  Tom.  V,  pp.  84,  565. 
^  Coleccion  de  Documentos,  V,  83,  85. — See  also  Carranza,  Comentarios  sobre 
el  Catechismo,  fol.  230. 

*  Ordenaraientos  Reales,  Lib.  iii,  Tit.  1,  leyes  4,  5  (Salmanticse,  1560,  pp.  790, 
793).— Novis.  Recop.,  Lib.  ii,  Tit.  i,  leyes  6,  7,  8,  12;  Lib.  xii.  Tit.  xii,  ley  6. 

"  Novfs.  Recop.,  Lib.  ii,  Tit.  ii,  leyes  2,  3,  4,  6,  9,  10,  11,  18,  22,  23. 


Chap.  IV]  LATITUDE  IN  SECULAR  AFFAIRS  429 

It  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  this  tendency  and  these  restric- 
tions on  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  to  estimate  properly  the  lati- 
tude obtained  by  the  Inquisition  in  purely  secular  affairs. 

Whether,  at  its  inception,  the  Inquisition  enjoyed  the  pre- 
rogative of  exclusive  cognizance  of  cases  involving  its  officials 
it  would  be  impossible  now  to  say.  They  were  mostly  laymen 
and  as  such  were  subject  to  the  secular  courts,  while,  in  the 
popular  opposition  eUcited  by  their  proceedings,  especially  in  the 
Aragonese  kingdoms,  there  might  be  anticipated  danger  that 
they  would  be  terrorized  or  prosecuted  unless  protected  by  being 
reserved  for  judgement  by  their  own  tribunals.  The  earhest 
mandate  to  this  effect  that  I  have  met  is  a  cedula  of  Ferdinand, 
March  26,  1488,  addressed  to  all  the  officers  of  justice  in  Catalonia 
ordering  them,  under  penalty  of  two  thousand  florins  and  the 
royal  wrath,  to  take  no  cognizance  of  anything  concerning  the 
ministers  and  familiars  of  the  Inquisition;  all  their  acts  in  such 
cases  are  declared  invaUd,  and  any  one  whom  they  may  have 
arrested  is  at  once  to  be  transferred  to  the  tribunal,  showing 
that,  at  least  in  Catalonia,  no  such  exemption  from  secular  justice 
had  previously  been  recognized.^ 

Yet  in  this  unlimited  decree  Ferdinand  had  overlooked  details 
which  necessarily  presented  themselves  in  practice.  Was  this 
exemption  from  secular  jurisdiction  confined  to  the  tiiulados 
y  asalariados  or  did  it  extend  to  the  unsalaried  commissioners 
and  famihars,  receiving  no  pay,  pursuing  their  customary  avoca- 
tions and  only  called  upon  for  occasional  service?  There  was 
also  a  question  about  the  servants  of  officials,  for  an  abuse  of  the 
spiritual  courts  had  included  those  of  clerics.  Then  it  might 
be  asked  whether  the  protection  accorded  to  the  person  of  the 
official  extended  to  his  property  in  civil  suits,  with  the  wide 
avenue  thus  opened  to  abuses  of  many  kinds.  There  was,  more- 
over, a  well-settled  principle  of  law  that  the  accuser  or  plaintiff 
must  seek  the  court  of  the  defendant;  if,  in  violation  of  this,  the 
official  could  enjoy  what  was  known  as  the  active  juero  as  well 
as  the  passive— that  is,  if  he  as  plaintiff  could  bring  suit  or  pros- 
ecution before  his  own  tribunal— his  power  of  offence  would  be 
vastly  increased,  together  with  his  opportunities  for  tyrannizing 
over  all  around  him. 

These  were  questions  which  had  to  be  decided.    It  would  seem 

1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  32,  fol.  19. 


430  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

that  the  inquisitors  construed  their  powers  in  the  most  liberal 
fashion,  giving  rise  to  abuses  which  called  for  repression  and  a 
limitation  of  their  jurisdiction.  The  reformatory  Instructions 
of  1498,  accordingly,  order  them  not  to  defend  officials  and  their 
servants  in  civil  cases  and  only  officials  in  criminal  actions,  a 
rule  repeated  in  a  carta  acordada  of  May  4th  of  the  same  year/ 
This  excluded  servants  wholly  and  deprived  officials  of  the  fuero 
in  civil  matters,  but  it  was  soon  modified  by  Ferdinand,  in  a 
letter  of  January  12,  1500,  to  the  Catalonia  tribunal,  ordering 
it  not  to  interfere  with  the  royal  court  in  a  certain  suit,  and  ex- 
pressing the  rule  that  the  plaintiff  must  seek  the  court  of  the 
defendant.^  It  was  impossible  however  to  restrain  inquisitors 
from  exceeding  their  jurisdiction  and  he  was  obliged,  August  20, 
1502,  to  repeat  his  injunctions  to  the  same  tribunal,  in  conse- 
quence of  complaints  from  the  Diputados.  The  inquisitors 
were  roundly  taken  to  task  for  lending  themselves  to  the  schemes 
of  the  receiver  in  buying  up  debts  and  claims  and  then  collecting 
them  through  the  tribunal;  they  were  told  that  they  must  defend 
none  but  salaried  officials  actually  in  service;  if  they  are  plain- 
tiffs in  civil  suits  they  must  apply  to  the  court  of  the  defendants, 
while  if  they  are  defendants  the  plaintiffs  must  seek  the  tribunal. 
To  evoke  other  cases,  he  says,  causes  great  scandal  and  will  lead 
to  troubles  which  must  be  prevented.  A  fortnight  later  he 
emphasized  this  about  a  civil  case  v/hich  they  had  evoked  from 
the  royal  court;  they  must  remit  it  back  and  not  have  to  be 
written  to  again  as  he  would  not  tolerate  such  proceedings.' 
Thus  familiars  and  servants  were  not  entitled  to  the  fuero,  or 
inquisitorial  jurisdiction,  while  salaried  officials  enjoyed  it,  active 
and  passive,  in  criminal  actions  and  only  passive  in  civil  suits. 

Unduly  favorable  as  was  this  to  the  Inquisition,  the  tribunals 
paid  no  attention  to  its  limitations;  they  welcomed  all  who 

*  Instrucciones  de  1498,  §  2  (Arguello,  fol.  12). — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inqui- 
sicion,  Libro  939,  fol.  144. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  1. 

3  Ibidem,  Libro  13,  fol.  385,  386;  Lib.  2,  fol.  7,  10. 

The  tribunal  of  Murcia  possessed  a  cedula  of  Ferdinand,  February  28,  1505, 
ordering  the  payment  of  a  debt  to  an  ofhcial  in  which  he  used  the  expression  that 
inquisitors  are  judges  in  all  cases  of  officials  and  ministers.  This  seems  to  have 
been  regarded  as  furnishing  a  foundation  for  the  subsequent  extension  of  juris- 
diction, for  the  Suprema,  November  22,  1635,  ordered  the  original  to  be  sent  to 
it  and  a  transcript  was  kept  by  the  tribunal. — MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copen- 
hagen, 218b    p.  204. 


Chap.  IV]    INTERFERENCE  WITH  COURSE  OF  JUSTICE  431 

sought  their  judgement  seat,  and  the  desire  for  it  of  those  who  had 
no  claim  on  it  shows  that  they  had  a  reputation  of  selhng  justice. 
One  or  two  cases  will  exemplify  this  and  show  how  good  were 
the  grounds  of  complaint  by  the  people.  There  was  a  certain 
Juan  de  Sant  Feliu  of  Murviedro,  whose  father  and  mother-in- 
law  had  been  condemned  for  heresy,  and  to  whom  Ferdinand 
had  kindly  granted  their  confiscations,  including  the  dowry  of 
his  wife.  In  1505  the  town  of  Murviedro  farmed  out  to  him  and 
his  wife  the  impost  on  meat  for  11,100  sueldos  a  year;  he  died 
and,  in  the  settlement  of  his  account,  he  was  found  to  owe  the 
town  a  hundred  and  fifty  libras,  which  it  proceeded  to  collect 
from  his  sons  in  the  court  of  the  governor.  Under  pretext  that 
his  property  had  been  confiscated  and  restored,  they  appealed 
in  1511  to  the  tribunal  of  Valencia,  which  promptly  evoked  the 
case  and  inhibited  the  court  from  further  action,  whereupon 
the  town  complained  to  Ferdinand  who  ordered  the  case  remit- 
ted to  the  governor.  Unabashed  by  this,  in  1513,  Sant  Feliu's 
heirs  on  the  same  pretext  obtained  the  intervention  of  the  tri- 
bunal in  another  case,  in  which  Doiia  Violante  de  Borja  had 
sued  them  for  7500  sueldos  which  she  had  entrusted  to  him  to 
invest  in  a  censo  of  the  town  of  Murviedro;  the  censo  had  been 
paid  off  and  he  had  concealed  the  fact  and  kept  the  money. 
Judgement  was  given  against  them,  when  the  inquisitors  inter- 
posed and  prohibited  the  royal  court  from  further  action.  Fer- 
dinand expressed  much  indignation  at  their  interference  with 
justice  in  a  matter  wholly  foreign  to  their  jurisdiction  and  ordered 
the  prohibition  to  be  withdrawn.  Even  more  arbitrary  was  the 
action,  in  1511,  of  the  Majorca  tribunal,  when  Pedro  Torna- 
mirandez  sued  the  heirs  of  Francisco  Ball  ester  for  some  cattle 
and  obtained  judgement  in  the  court  of  the  royal  Ueutenant, 
whereupon  the  heirs  appealed  to  the  inquisitor  who  evoked  the 
case  and  forbade  further  proceedings  in  the  secular  court.  None 
of  the  parties  had  any  connection  with  the  Inquisition  and  there 
was  not  even  the  pretext  of  confiscation;  it  was  a  mere  wanton 
interference  with  the  course  of  justice,  only  exphcable  by  some 
illicit  gain,  and  when  Ferdinand's  attention  was  called  to  it  he 
ordered  the  inquisitor  to  revoke  his  action.^  If,  under  Ferdi- 
nand's incessant  vigilance  the  Inquisition  thus  boldly  prosti- 
tuted its  powers,  we  can  appreciate   how  well-founded,  under 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  liibro  3,  fol.  104,  151,  242. 


432  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

his  careless  successors,  were  the  complaints  of  those  who  suffered 
under  wrongs  perpetrated  under  the  pretence  of  serving  God. 

In  the  Catalan  Concordia  of  1512  there  was  an  attempt  to  do 
away  with  some  of  these  abuses  and  the  bull  Pastoralis  officii 
of  Leo  X,  confirming  the  Concordia,  marks  another  stage  in  the 
development  of  the  juero.  No  one,  he  said,  could  be  cited  save  in 
his  own  ordinary  court  at  the  instance  of  an  official  or  familiar; 
if  it  were  attempted,  all  acts  concerning  it  were  invahd  and  the 
inquisitors  must  condemn  the  plaintiff  in  double  the  expenses 
and  damage;  if  any  official  bought  property  in  suit,  or  on  which 
a  suit  was  expected,  he  could  be  cited  before  a  court  not  his  own 
and  if  he  claimed  property  under  seizure  by  a  secular  judge,  the 
latter  could  disregard  all  inhibitions  issued  by  inquisitors;  more- 
over inquisitors  should  have  no  cognizance  in  matters  concerning 
the  private  property  of  officials.  While  thus  striking  at  some 
of  the  more  flagrant  abuses  of  the  fuero,  Leo  opened  the  door 
to  worse  ones  by  admitting  famiUars  and  the  commensals  or 
servants  of  officials  to  participation  in  the  immunities  of  the 
Inquisition.*  The  bull,  in  fact,  is  in  accordance  with  the  Instruc- 
tions of  1514,  as  issued  by  Inquisitor-general  Mercader,  and  we 
shall  see  how  completely  the  restrictive  clauses  were  ignored 
while  those  admitting  familiars  and  servants  were  developed.^ 

The  question  as  to  familiars  and  servants  was  not  absolutely 
settled  for  some  years.  It  is  true  that,  in  1515  at  Logroflo,  when 
the  corregidor  arrested  Martin  de  Viana,  a  servant  of  the  secre- 
tary Lezana,  and  refused  to  surrender  him  to  the  tribunal,  he  and 
his  deputy  and  alguazil  were  excommunicated  and  the  Suprema 
on  appeal  subjected  them  all  to  fines  and  humihating  penance.^ 
On  the  other  hand,  in  1516  at  ValladoHd,  when  Alonso  de  Torres, 
servant  of  Inquisitor  Frias,  was  thrown  into  the  royal  prison,  the 
inquisitor  did  not  reclaim  him  but  procured  the  interposition  of 
the  Suprema,  which  ordered  him  to  be  released  on  bail  and  then, 
after  nine  months  had  passed  without  a  charge  being  brought 
against  him,  he  procured  a  royal  cedula  for  the  release  of  his 
bondsmen.*  Whatever  doubts  may  have  existed  on  the  subject 
were  removed,  in  1518,  by  a  cedula  of  Charles  V,  reciting  that  in 


*  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I  de  copias,  fol.  219. — Pragmdticas  y 
altres  Drets  de  Catbalunya,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  viii,  cap.  2. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  933. 

»  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  925.  fol.  680. 

*  Ibidem,  Lib.  3,  fol.  452. 


Chap.  IV]  IMMUNITY  OF  SERVANTS  433 

Jaen  the  secular  courts  assumed  cognizance  of  criminal  cases 
concerning  officials  and  familiars  and  their  servants,  which  was 
contrary  to  the  privileges  of  the  Holy  Office,  wherefore  he  for- 
bade it  strictly  for  the  future/  After  this  the  Inquisition  had  no 
hesitation  in  insisting  on  its  rights.  When,  in  1532,  the  corregidor 
and  officials  of  Toledo  were  excommunicated  for  punishing  the 
servant  of  an  inquisitor  and  the  Empress-regent  Isabel  wrote  to 
the  tribunal  to  absolve  them,  the  Suprema  instructed  it  not  to 
obey  her.^  She  learned  the  lesson  and,  in  1535,  when  ordering 
some  servants  of  inquisitors  and  familiars  to  be  remitted  to  the 
Inquisition,  she  said  it  was  accustomed  to  have  their  cases,  both 
civil  and  criminal,  and  it  was  her  pleasure  that  this  should  be 
observed.^ 

The  civil  authorities  were  somewhat  dilatory  in  recognizing 
the  immunity  of  servants,  and  cases  continued  to  occur  in  which 
the  tribunals  vindicated  their  jurisdiction  energetically.  About 
1565  two  officers  of  the  royal  justice  in  Barcelona  arrested  a 
servant  of  Inquisitor  Mexia  in  a  brothel  where  he  was  quarrelling 
with  a  woman,  for  which  they  were  thrown  into  the  secret  prison 
as  though  they  were  heretics  and  were  banished  for  three  months, 
while  the  judge  of  the  royal  criminal  court,  who  had  something 
to  do  with  the  matter,  was  compelled  to  appear  in  the  audience- 
chamber  and  undergo  a  reprimand  in  the  presence  of  the  assembled 
officials  of  the  tribunal.  The  virtual  immunity  for  offenders 
resulting  from  the  privilege  is  illustrated  by  the  case,  in  the  same 
tribunal,  of  Pedro  Juncar,  servant  of  the  receiver,  who  murdered 
the  janitor  of  the  Governor  of  Catalonia;  the  governor  arrested 
him  but  was  forced  to  surrender  him  to  the  tribunal,  which 
discharged  him  with  a  sentence  of  exile  for  a  year  or  two  and 
costs.*  The  influence  on  social  order  of  conferring  immunity  on 
such  a  class  can  readily  be  conceived. 

The  privilege  of  the  fuero  was  -not  confined  to  servants  but 
was  extended  in  whatever  direction  the  ingenuity  and  persever- 
ance of  the  tribunal  could  enforce  it.     Penitents  who  were  ful- 


1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  9,  fol.  1 ;  Lib.  939,  fol.  149.— MSS.  of 
Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  939,  fol.  147. 

3  Ibidem,  fol.   144. 

*  Ibidem,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  foL  20.— A  summary  of  cases,  appar- 
ently compiled  about  1582,  may  be  found  in  the  Simancas  Archives,  Leg.  1465, 

fol.  >9. 

28 


434  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

filling  their  terms  of  penance  were  claimed  and  the  claim  was 
confirmed,  in  1547,  by  Prince  Phihp.  In  Valencia  and  Barcelona 
the  workmen  employed  on  the  buildings  of  the  Inquisition  were 
given  nominal  appointments  under  which  they  claimed  immunity. 
In  Lima  the  tribunal  complained  to  the  viceroy  of  the  arrest  of 
a  bricklayer  who  was  working  for  it,  but  it  got  no  satisfaction. 
In  Barcelona  the  tribunal  granted  inhibition  with  censures  on  the 
civil  court,  in  which  the  brother  of  a  f amihar  was  suing  a  merchant 
on  a  protested  bill  of  exchange.^ 

We  have  seen  the  limitations  imposed  by  Ferdinand  and  the 
bull  Pastoralis  officii  and  the  reiteration  of  the  principle  that  the 
plaintiff  must  seek  justice  in  the  court  of  the  defendant.  As  far 
as  regards  Castile,  Charles  V  had  overthrown  this  in  criminal 
matters  for  both  officials  and  familiars.  Civil  cases  remained 
in  a  somewhat  undetermined  state,  especially  concerning  famil- 
iars, the  inquisitors  endeavoring  to  grasp  as  far  as  they  could 
both  the  active  and  passive  fuero.  When,  in  1551,  complaints 
came  from  Valencia  that  the  tribunal  was  collecting  debts  for 
familiars.  Inquisitor-general  Valdes  wrote  that  he  did  not  know 
how  this  had  come  to  pass  and  called  for  precise  information 
as  to  when  it  had  commenced  and  generally  as  to  the  method 
observed  in  the  civil  cases,  active  and  passive,  of  familiars,  so 
that  he  could  answer  Prince  Philip.^  There  was  a  good  deal  of 
uncertainty  about  the  whole  subject;  the  courts  were  restive 
and  the  situation  was  becoming  strained.  In  the  endeavor  to 
settle  it,  Charles,  in  1542,  reissued  his  edict  of  1518  with  a  sohre 
carta  emphatically  commanding  its  strict  observance  and  for- 
bidding the  secular  courts  from  any  cognizance  of  the  criminal 
cases  of  officials  or  famihars.^  This  did  not  mend  matters.  The 
courts  persisted  in  exercising  jurisdiction  over  familiars,  the 
recurso  de  fuerza  was  freely  invoked  and  competencias  multiplied. 
Both  sides  appealed  to  Charles,  who  was  in  Germany,  and  this 
time  the  opponents  of  the  Inquisition  gained  the  advantage. 
Prince  Phihp,  as  regent,  issued  a  cedula,  May  15,  1545,  in  which 


^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  7,  fol.  6;  Lib.  13,  fol.  20,  370,  372; 
Lib.  688,  fol.  18;  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  20.— Archivo  hist,  nacional, 
Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  5,  n.  1,  fol.  200. — Bibl.  nacional  de  Lima,  Protocolo 
223,  Expediente,  5288. 

2  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  206 

3  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  X,  157,  fol.  244. 


Chap.  IV]  IMMUNITY  OF  FAMILIARS  435 

he  described  how  laymen,  subject  to  the  secular  courts,  obtained 
immunity  for  their  crimes  on  pretext  of  being  familiars;  how  the 
tribunals,  in  defending  them,  cast  excommunications  on  the 
officers  of  justice,  through  which  scandals  and  disquiet  were 
daily  increasing,  and  the  course  of  justice  was  impeded.  The 
familiars  were  in  no  way  entitled  to  immunity  from  the  secular 
courts,  as  they  were  not  officials,  although  a  different  custom 
existed  in  Aragon  and  the  inquisitors  pretended  to  it  in  Castile, 
under  the  cedula  of  1518  and  the  sobrecedula  of  1542,  but  these 
were  both  irregular,  not  having  been  despatched  by  the  Council 
and  Secretariat  of  Castile  as  is  customary  and  necessary.  There- 
fore in  order  that  dehnquent  familiars  may  not  remain  unpunished 
and  be  induced  to  commit  crimes  by  the  prospect  of  immunity, 
the  emperor  ordered  the  matter  to  be  thoroughly  discussed  and 
meanwhile  the  cedulas  of  1518  and  1542  to  be  suspended,  in  con- 
formity with  which  they  are  declared  to  be  suspended,  inquisitors 
are  ordered  no  longer  to  take  cognizance  of  the  cases  of  familiars 
and  the  secular  courts  are  instructed  to  prosecute  them  in  accord- 
ance with  the  laws.^ 

The  Inquisition  did  not  acquiesce  tamely  in  this  defeat,  which 
was  aggravated  by  the  secular  courts  interpreting  it  as  giving 
them  jurisdiction  over  officials  as  well  as  famihars.  It  protested 
and  resisted  and  showed  so  little  obedience  that  the  Cortes  of 
Valladolid,  in  1548,  asked  that  it  should  be  compelled  to  confine 
itself  to  its  proper  functions  in  matters  of  faith.^  Quarrels  and 
recursos  de  fuerza  continued  and  finally  the  whole  question  was 
referred  to  a  junta  consisting  of  two  members  each  from  the 
Suprema  and  Council  of  Castile.  The  representatives  of  the  Inqui- 
sition conceded  that  it  had  been  in  fault  in  appointing  too  many 
familiars  and  in  claiming  for  them  all  the  exemptions  of  salaried 
officials:  those  of  the  Council  admitted  that  the  courts  had  erred 
in  interfering  with  civil  and  criminal  cases  properly  appertaining 
to  the  Holy  Office.    Mutual  concessions  were  made,  resulting  in 

1  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  X,  157,  fol.  244.— Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion, 
Lib.  939,  fol.  149. — All  this  shows  how  mistaken  is  the  assertion  of  Llorente 
(Hist.  crit.  Cap.  xlvii,  Art.  1)  repeated  by  Rodrigo  (III,  365)  and  others,  that 
Charles  V,  in  1535,  suspended  the  royal  jurisdiction  (under  which  the  Inquisition 
had  cognizance  of  the  affairs  of  its  officials)  and  restored  it  in  1545.  This  action 
was  confined  to  the  tribunal  of  Sicily.  The  anonymous  author  of  the  Discurso 
historico-legal  sobre  el  Origen  etc.  de  la  Inquisicion,  p.  93  (VaUadoUd,  1803)  seems 
to  be  the  only  one  who  has  recognized  this. 

2  Colmeiro,  Cortes  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  II,  217. 


436  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

what  was  known  as  the  Concordia  of  Castile,  March  10,  1553 — 
an  agreement  which  the  Inquisition  admitted,  a  century  later, 
that  neither  side  had  observed.^ 

The  Concordia  was  silent  as  to  the  salaried  officials,  thus 
leaving  them  in  possession  of  the  active  and  passive  fuero  in 
both  civil  and  criminal  cases.  It  devoted  itself  wholly  to  the 
familiars  who,  in  this  as  in  so  much  else,  were  the  leading  source 
of  trouble.  After  regulating,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  their 
number  and  character,  it  defined  that  in  civil  cases  they  should 
be  subject  wholly  to  the  secular  courts.  For  the  greater  crimes, 
moreover,  cognizance  was  also  reserved  exclusively  to  the  courts, 
the  list  comprising  treason,  unnatural  crime,  sedition,  violating 
royal  safe-conducts,  cUsobedience  to  royal  mandates,  treachery, 
rape,  carrying  off  women,  highway  robbery,  arson,  house-break- 
ing and  crimes  of  greater  magnitude  than  these,  as  well  as  re- 
sistance or  formal  disrespect  to  the  royal  courts.  Those  who 
held  office  were  also  amenable  to  the  courts  for  official  mal- 
feasance. This  left  only  petty  offences  subject  to  inquisitorial 
jurisdiction  and  for  these  famihars  were  liable  to  arrest  by  secular 
magistrates,  subject  to  being  immediately  transferred  to  the 
Inquisition.  For  doubtful  cases  it  was  provided  that,  when  the 
lay  judge  and  inquisitor  could  not  agree,  there  should  be  no  con- 
tention, but  the  evidence  was  to  be  sent  to  the  court  of  the  king, 
where  two  members  each  of  the  Suprema  and  Council  of  Castile 
should  decide  as  to  the  jurisdiction;  for  this  a  majority  was  re- 
quired and,  in  case  of  equal  division  of  votes,  the  matter  went  to 
the  king  for  final  decision.  No  appeal  from  this  was  allowed  and 
meanwhile  the  accused  was  retained  in  the  prison  to  which  he  had 
been  consigned  at  arrest.^    This  process  of  adjudicating  cUsputes 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  X,  157,  fol.  244.— MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S, 
130.— MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  17. 

'  Nueva  Recop.,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  i,  ley  18. — No\ns.  Recop.,  Lib.  ii,  Tit.  vii,  ley  1. 

It  is  not  without  interest  to  observe  that  the  privileges  of  officials  and  familiars 
of  the  Roman  Inquisition  were  much  more  limited  than  in  Spain.  Familiars  had 
no  exemption  from  public  burdens  or  duties  or  military  service  and  were  subject 
to  the  secular  courts  in  all  criminal  cases.  When,  in  1633,  those  of  Jesi  asked  to 
have  their  civil  suits  tried  by  the  Inquisition,  the  Congregation  did  not  even 
answer  them.  The  only  officials  entitled  to  the  forum  were  those  in  continual 
active  service,  and  there  is  nothing  said  about  wives,  children  and  servants  shar- 
ing in  the  privilege.  As  in  Spain,  the  number  of  familiars  was  excessive.  Faenza 
was  allowed  50,  Ancona  40  and  Rimini  30. — Decret.  Sacr.  Congr.  Sti  Officii,  pp. 
197-8,  200  (R.  Archivio  di  Stato  in  Roma,  Fondo  Camerale,  Congr.  del  S.  Oflfizio, 
vol.  3). 


Chap.  IV]  THE  LA  W  IN  CASTILE  437 

became  known  as  competencia,  the  details  of  which  will  be  con- 
sidered hereafter. 

Whatever  concession  the  Inquisition  made  in  thus  surrender- 
ing a  portion  of  its  jurisdiction  over  familiars  was  more  than 
compensated  by  what  was  evidently  part  of  the  agreement,  the 
issue  on  the  same  day  of  Philip's  cedula  addressed  to  all  judicial 
bodies  forbidding  them  to  entertain  appeals  of  any  kind  from 
the  acts  of  the  Holy  Office  (p.  341).  It  thus  secured  complete 
autonomy;  it  was  rendered  self-judging,  responsible  to  the  king 
alone,  and  the  populations  were  surrendered  wholly  to  its  dis- 
cretion. 

As  far  as  regards  Castile,  the  Concordia  of  1553  was  final.  It 
is  true  that  the  royal  cedula  of  Aranjuez,  April  28,  1583,  extended 
its  principles  to  the  salaried  officials,  but  there  is  no  trace  of  the 
observance  of  this.^  Another  point  was  subjected  to  a  temporary 
modification.  The  absolute  denial  of  justice  in  allowing  inquisi- 
tors to  have  their  civil  suits  decided  by  their  own  tribunals 
attracted  attention,  after  nearly  a  century,  and  the  Suprema, 
February  18,  1641,  ordered  that  these  cases  should  be  referred 
to  it,  when,  if  it  deemed  proper,  it  would  commission  the  tribunal 
to  hear  them,  but  this  slender  restriction  seems  to  have  elicited 
so  active  an  opposition  that  it  was  withdrawn  within  three 
months  by  a  counter  order  of  May  14th,  restoring  to  the  inquisi- 
tors the  power  of  sitting  in  judgement  on  their  own  cases.^  It  is 
easy  to  conceive  the  amount  of  oppression  and  wrong  which  they 
could  thus  inflict. 

With  these  trivial  exceptions  the  Concordia  remained  the  law 
in  Castile.  In  1568  Philip  II  issued  a  cedula  stating  that  it  had 
not  been  observed,  wherefore  he  ordered  strict  comphance  with 
it  and,  as  late  as  1775  Carlos  III  treats  it  as  being  still  in  force 
and  to  be  respected  by  all  parties.'  If  Phihp,  however,  expected 
peace  between  the  rival  and  jealous  jurisdictions,  as  the  result 
of  the  Concordia,  he  deceived  himself.  Both  were  eager  for 
quarrel  and  opportunities  to  gratify  combative  instincts  were 
not  lacking.     The  secular  courts  resented  the  intrusion  of  the 


1  The  only  allusion  that  I  have  met  to  this  is  its  citation  in  the  argument  of  the 
alcaldes  def  crimen  of  Granada  in  the  case  of  Geronimo  Palomino.  A  copy  is  m 
the  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130 

2  MSS   of  the  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218^,  p.  202. 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  X,  157,  fol.  144.— Novls.  Recop.,  Lib.  ii,  Tit.  viii, 
ley  10. 


438  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

Inquisition,  which  was  careful  to  keep  antagonism  active  by  the 
insulting  arrogance  of  its  methods,  whenever  a  question  arose 
between  them.  There  was  ample  field  for  contention,  for  not 
only  were  the  excepted  crimes  loosely  defined,  giving  rise  to 
many  nice  questions,  but  the  Inquisition  acutely  argued  that 
before  the  royal  courts  could  assume  possession  of  a  case  the 
crime  must  be  fully  proved,  for  the  famihar  was  entitled  to  the 
fuero  until  his  guilt  was  ascertained,  thus  keeping  in  its  own 
hands  all  the  vital  parts  of  the  process  and  excluding  the  secular 
justices/  Then  the  circle  of  excepted  cases  was  enlarged, not  only 
for  familiars  but  for  salaried  officials,  by  various  edicts  from  time 
to  time,  as  we  have  seen  with  regard  to  pistols  and  cUscharging 
fire-arms.  Another  instance  was  a  cedula  of  Philip  II,  in  1566, 
including  among  exceptions  the  violation  of  royal  pragmaticas, 
which  was  put  to  the  test,  in  1594,  when  the  Chancellery  of 
Granada  prosecuted  a  notary  of  the  tribunal  for  wearing  a  larger 
ruff  than  was  allowed  by  a  sumptuary  pragmatica;  the  tribunal 
excommunicated  the  judges  but,  when  the  case  was  carried  up 
to  the  Suprema  and  Council  of  Castile,  the  Chancellery  was 
justified.^  In  the  frenzied  efforts  to  maintain  the  value  of  the 
worthless  vellon  coinage,  Philip  IV,  by  repeated  edicts  between 
1631  and  1660,  deprived  familiars  and  salaried  officials  of  the 
fuero  in  cases  of  demanding  more  than  the  legal  premium  for  the 
precious  metals  or  of  counterfeiting  or  importing  base  money.' 
Frauds  on  the  revenue  from  tobacco  also  deprived  all  offenders  of 
exemptions,  by  a  pragmatica  of  1719,  but  it  was  difficult  to  enforce 
and  had  to  be  repeated  in  1743,  after  which  at  last  Inquisitor- 
general  Prado  y  Cuesta,  in  1747,  ordered  the  tribunals  to  obey  it.* 

Although  Navarre  was  under  the  crown  of  Castile,  the  Con- 
cordia of  1553  was  not  extended  to  it  until  1665,  by  a  royal  cedula 


^  See  the  case  of  Montalvo  and  del  Aguila,  in  1642,  when  the  arguments  mainly 
turn  on  this  point  (MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130).  Also  that  of  Francisco 
Cases,  about  1650,  when  both  sides  were  able  to  cite  precedents  in  their  favor. — 
Arch.  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  1,  fol.  638. 

'  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b   p.  125. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  38,  fol.  264. — Nueva  Recop.,  Lib.  v, 
Tit.  xxi,  Declaraciones,  ley  21,  §§  9,  10. — Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  xxi, 
Autos  13,  16,  21,  22,  25. 

*  Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  ix.  Tit.  viii.  Auto  6. — Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisi- 
cion de  Valencia,  Leg.  10,  n.  2,  fol.  146. — MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen, 
218b    p.  265. 


Chap.  IV]  VALENCIA  439 

of  May  9th.  The  questions  which  agitated  the  rest  of  Spain  seem 
to  have  rarely  presented  themselves  there,  for  we  hear  Httle  of 
them  in  that  quarter,  although,  in  1564,  the  tribunal  of  Logrono 
complained  of  the  intrusion  of  the  secular  courts  on  its  jurisdic- 
tion and  there  were,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  occasional  colHsions 
on  the  subject  of  witchcraft,  which  was  viixti  fori} 

The  kingdoms  of  the  Crown  of  Aragon  were  the  scenes  of 
much  greater  trouble  than  those  of  Castile,  in  deUmiting  the 
boundaries  of  the  rival  jurisdictions,  for  they  still  had  institutions 
which  could  remonstrate  against  abuses  and  struggle  for  their 
removal.  We  have  seen  how  recalcitrant  they  were  when  the 
Inquisition  was  introduced  and  how  vigorously  they  struggled 
against  the  abuses  which  followed.  In  the  Concordias  of  1512 
and  1520  they  secured  certain  paper  guarantees,  but  these  were 
brushed  aside  by  the  Inquisition  with  customary  ill-faith.  Irri- 
tation and  hostiHty  became  chronic,  with  the  result  that  they 
were  denied  some  of  the  slender  alleviations  vouchsafed  to 
Castile,  on  the  ground  that  the  character  of  the  population  and 
the  neighborhood  of  the  heretics  of  France  rendered  it  necessary 
that  the  Holy  Office  should  be  fortified  with  greater  privileges 
than  in  the  rest  of  Spain. 

Of  the  three  kingdoms  Valencia  was  the  one  which  gave  the 
least  trouble  in  this  matter.  Yet  a  case  occurring  in  1540  is 
highly  significant  of  the  terrorism  under  which  the  royal  judges 
discharged  their  duties.  Dr.  Ferrer  of  Tortosa,  one  of  the  judges, 
appealed  to  Inquisitor-general  Tavera,  representing  that  in  the 
previous  year  he  had  condemned  to  death  a  murderer,  who  had 
fully  deserved  it.  Now  that  the  inquisitor  had  come  his  enemies 
represent  that  the  culprit  was  a  familiar,  although  he  had  never 
claimed  to  be  one,  and  it  is  currently  reported  that  the  inquisitor 
is  about  to  prosecute  him  (Ferrer).  If  he  is  in  fault  in  the  matter 
he  will  cheerfully  submit  to  punishment,  but  he  begs  not  to  be 
subjected  to  the  infamy  of  a  trial.  To  this  appeal  the  Suprema 
responded  by  ordering  the  inquisitor  to  send  it  such  evidence  as 
he  may  gather  and  to  await  a  reply  before  taking  action.^  It 
is  evident  that  all  criminal  judges  lived  in  an  atmosphere  of 
dread  lest  at  any  moment  the  honest  discharge  of  their  functions 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  23,  fol.  42. — Ibidem,  Inquisicion  de 
Barcelona,  Cortes,  Legajo  1,  fol.  45. 
•  Ibidem,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  107. 


440  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

might  precipitate  them  into  a  disastrous  conflict  with  the  tribunal. 
It  justifies  the  complaints  of  the  Cortes  of  1547  and  1553,  the 
latter  of  which  declared  that  the  inquisitors  exceeded  their  juris- 
diction, intervening  in  many  affairs,  both  civil  and  criminal, 
that  had  no  connection  with  heresy.  This  caused  great  disturb- 
ance of  justice  and  contentions  between  the  jurisdictions,  in 
which  the  tribunal  assumed  to  be  supreme  and  to  define  the 
limits  of  its  own  power.  Great  as  were  these  evils  they  were 
daily  increasing  and  were  becoming  intolerable,  wherefore  the 
Cortes  prayed  that  the  subject  be  investigated  and  a  clear  defi- 
nition be  made  between  the  royal  jurisdiction  and  that  of  the 
Inquisition.^ 

This  resulted  in  a  junta  of  the  members  of  the  Suprema  and  of 
the  Council  of  Aragon,  who  agreed  upon  a  Concordia,  published 
by  Prince  Philip,  May  11,  1554.  In  this  he  recited  that,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  great  numbers  of  familiars  and  their  endeavoring 
to  have  all  their  cases,  civil  and  criminal,  tried  by  the  tribunal, 
which  sought  to  protect  them  in  this  against  the  claims  of  the 
royal  judges,  there  had  arisen  many  contentions  in  which  the 
whole  of  the  Audiencia  had  been  excommunicated.  To  put  an 
end  to  this  unseemly  strife  he  had  caused  the  junta  to  be  held, 
with  the  result  of  the  following  articles,  which  he  ordered  both 
sides  to  observe,  the  royal  officials  under  pain  of  a  thousand 
florins,  and  the  inquisitors  as  they  desired  to  please  him  and  the 
emperor.  In  this  the  first  point  was  the  reduction  of  the  excessive 
number  of  familiars;  in  the  city  of  Valencia  they  were  not  to 
exceed  one  hundred  and  eighty ;  in  towns  of  more  than  a  thousand 
hearths  there  might  be  eight,  in  those  of  over  five  hundred  six, 
in  smaller  places  four,  except  that  in  the  coast  towns  there  might 
be  two  more.  Lists  of  all  appointees  were  to  be  furnished  to 
the  magistrates,  both  to  check  excess  and  to  identify  individuals. 
In  civil  suits  they  were  to  enjoy  the  passive  fuero  but  not  the 
active ;  if  in  contracts  they  renounced  this  privilege  the  condition 
held  good,  while,  if  the  other  party  agreed  to  accept  the  juris- 
diction of  the  Inquisition,  he  could  not  be  cited  before  it.  In 
criminal  cases,  the  Inquisition  had  sole  cognizance  with  respect 
to  officials,  their  servants  and  families  and  to  familiars  but  not 
to  their  wives,  children  and  servants.  When  contests  arose  with 
secular  courts,  mild  measures  were  to  be  used  and  exconmiunica- 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  922,  fol.  17;  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona, 
Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  75. 


Chap.  IV]  VALENCIA  441 

tion  be  avoided  as  far  as  possible.  When  a  familiar  entered  into 
a  treaty  of  peace  and  truce,  it  was  to  be  executed  before  an 
inquisitor  and,  if  it  contained  a  condition  of  death  for  violation, 
the  inquisitor,  in  case  of  such  violation,  was  to  relax  the  culprit 
to  the  secular  arm  to  be  put  to  death.  Familiars  who  were  in 
trade  were  not  to  enjoy  the  fuero  for  frauds  or  violations  of 
municipal  laws  and  officials  holding  public  office  were  liable  to 
the  secular  courts  for  malfeasance  therein.^ 

This  would  appear  to  grant  to  the  Inquisition  all  that  it  had 
any  excuse  for  asking,  but  it  was  impossible  to  bind  the  inquisi- 
tors to  any  compact,  or  to  observe  any  rules.  A  letter  to  them 
from  the  Suprema,  in  September,  1560,  reminds  them  that  it 
had  already  ordered  them,  in  the  case  of  Juan  Sanchez,  to  deprive 
him  of  his  familiarship,  to  withdraw  their  inhibitions  and  cen- 
sures, and  to  remit  the  affair  to  the  secular  judge,  in  spite  of 
which  they  had  gone  forward  and  rendered  sentence;  now,  as 
Sanchez  is  not  a  familiar,  they  must  positively  send  the  case 
back  to  the  ordinary  courts.^  When  such  persistence  in  injus- 
tice existed,  it  is  not  surprising  that,  at  the  Cortes  of  Monzon, 
in  1564,  the  deputies  of  Valencia,  like  those  of  Aragon  and 
Catalonia,  presented  a  series  of  complaints,  bearing  chiefly  on 
abuses  of  jurisdiction.  We  happen  to  have  a  view  of  the  situation 
by  an  impartial  observer,  the  Venetian  envoy,  Giovanni  Soranzo, 
in  his  relation  of  1565,  which  is  worth  repeating,  although  we 
must  bear  in  mind  that  it  was  impossible  for  a  Venetian  statesman 
to  give  Philip  II  credit  for  the  honest  fanaticism  which  underlay 
his  character.  After  alluding  to  the  privileges  of  the  Aragonese 
kingdoms,  he  proceeds  "The  king  uses  every  opportunity  to 
deprive  them  of  these  great  privileges  and,  knowing  that  there 
is  no  easier  or  more  certain  method  than  through  the  Inqui- 
sition, he  is  continually  increasing  its  authority.  In  these  last 
Cortes  the  Aragonese  prayed  that  the  Inquisition  should  take 
cognizance  of  no  cases  save  those  of  religion  and  said  that  they 
grieved  greatly  that  it  embraced  infinite  things  as  distant  as 
possible  from  its  jurisdiction  and  they  presented  many  cases 
not  pertaining  in  any  way  to  its  duties.  In  truth  at  present  the 
Inquisition  interposes  in  everything,  without  respect  to  any  one  of 
whatever  rank  or  position,  and  we  may  say  positively  that  this 
tribunal  is  the  real  master  which  rules  and  dominates  all  Spain. 

»  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130. 

*  Archive  de  Simaneas,  Inquisicion,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  247. 


442  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

The  king  replied  that  the  Inquisition  was  not  to  be  discussed  in 
the  Cortes,  when  they  all  arose  and  threatened  to  depart  without 
finishing  any  other  business,  if  the  king  did  not  wish  them  to 
discuss  a  matter  of  so  much  importance  to  them.  The  king 
quieted  them  by  promising  that,  when  he  returned  to  Castile, 
he  would  listen  to  their  complaints  and  would  not  fail  to  grant 
the  appropriate  rehef.  But  undoubtedly  he  did  this  so  that  the 
Cortes  should  end  without  a  revolt,  his  intention  being  to  increase 
rather  than  to  diminish  the  importance  of  the  Inquisition,  clearly 
recognizing  it  as  the  means  of  maintaining  his  reputation  and  of 
keeping  the  people  in  obedience  and  terror."^ 

Soranzo's  account  of  the  Cortes  is  not  wholly  complete.  When 
Philip  promised  relief  after  his  return  to  Castile,  the  deputies  re- 
plied that  they  did  not  choose  to  be  convoked  in  Castile  and  that 
they  would  go  no  further  with  the  subsidio  which  he  wanted  until 
they  were  satisfied.  The  sessions  were  prolonged;  the  patience 
of  the  deputies  outwore  his  own  and  he  promised  that  he  would 
have  a  visitation  made  of  the  tribunals  of  the  three  kingdoms 
and  then,  in  concert  with  their  Diputados,  issue  a  new  series  of 
regulations.^  The  promise  was  kept.  Francisco  de  Soto  Salazar, 
a  member  of  the  Suprema,  was  sent,  in  1566,  with  full  powers 
and  instructions  to  investigate  all  abuses,  but  especially  those 
connected  with  jurisdiction  in  matters  not  of  faith.  In  Valencia 
his  attention  was  particularly  called  to  a  practice  of  appointing 
deputy  inquisitors  and  officials  and  investing  them  with  the 
privilege  of  the  fuero  as  well  as  mechanics  employed  on  the 
palace  of  the  Inquisition  and  houses  of  the  officials  and  also  to 
the  overgrown  number  of  familiars  and  their  character.^  In  Cata- 
lonia, especially,  he  found  much  to  criticize,  as  we  shall  have 
occasion  to  see  hereafter,  for  he  performed  his  mission  thor- 
oughly and  conscientiously;  he  listened  to  all  complaints,  investi- 
gated them  and  bore  back  to  the  Suprema  full  reports  which 
bore  hardly  on  the  methods  of  all  the  tribunals.  .  Prolonged 
debates  ensued  between  the  Suprema,  the  Council  of  Aragon 
and  the  Diputados  and  finally,  in  1568,  a  new  Concordia  was 
issued.  It  is  significant  that  it  no  longer  was  a  royal  decree  but 
bore  the  shape  of  instructions  from  Inquisitor-general  Espinosa 


*  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  86. 

'  Gachard,  Don  Carlos  et  Philippe  II,  T.  I,  pp.  100-2. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  13,  fol.  370-2. 


Chap.  IV]  VALENCIA  443 

and  the  Suprema  to  the  tribunals,  and  the  king  only  appeared 
in  it  as  communicating  it  to  his  representatives  and  ordering 
its  observance  under  pain  of  a  thousand  florins,  coupled  with 
commands  to  favor  and  reverence  the  Inquisition  and  its  officials, 
to  give  them  all  necessary  aid  and  to  protect  and  defend  their 
privileges. 

The  Concordia  thus  granted  to  Valencia  confirmed  that  of 
1554  and  ordered  its  observance,  adding  a  number  of  special 
provisions,  highly  suggestive  of  the  abuses  which  had  flourished. 
As  affording  a  view  in  some  detail  of  the  causes  of  popular  irri- 
tation and  of  the  remedies  sought,  I  subjoin  an  abstract  of 
the  articles  bearing  on  the  subject. 

Outside  of  the  city  the  local  magistrates  are  to  have  cognizance  of  civil  cases 
of  familiars  involving  less  than  twelve  libras. 

Familiars  of  other  districts  settling  in  Valencia  lose  the  fuero,  but  retain  it  if 
the  residence  is  temporary. 

The  number  of  familiars  is  to  be  reduced  to  that  provided  in  1554,  weeding 
out  the  least  desirable. 

They  must  present  themselves  with  their  commissions  to  the  local  magistrates 
in  order  to  be  entered  on  the  lists,  without  which  they  forfeit  their  exemption. 

The  provision  depriving  those  in  trade  of  the  fuero,  for  frauds  and  offences 
committed  in  their  business,  which  has  not  been  observed,  is  to  be  enforced. 

Crimes  committed  prior  to  appointment  are  not  entitled  to  the  fuero. 

No  cleric  or  religious  or  powerful  noble  or  baron  is  to  be  appointed. 

Consultors  are  not  to  be  considered  as  officials,  but  only  persons  holding  com- 
missions from  the  inquisitor-general,  to  whom  may  be  added  a  steward  of  the 
prison  and  two  advocates  of  prisoners. 

In  future  the  servants  of  officials  must  really  be  servants  living  with  them  and 
receiving  regular  wages  in  order  to  be  protected  by  the  inquisitors. 

Inquisitors  are  not  to  interfere,  at  the  petition  of  an  official  or  familiar,  with 
the  regulations  of  the  college  of  surgeons. 

Any  familiar  who  is  a  carpenter  and  who  brings  lumber  from  the  sierra  of 
Cuenca  shall  not  be  protected  by  the  inquisitors,  but  shall  be  left  for  judgement 
to  the  secular  court. 

Outside  of  cases  of  heresy  inquisitors  must  not  interfere  with  the  execution  of 
justice  by  the  royal  judges  under  pretext  that  culprits  have  committed  offences 
pertaining  to  them,  but  in  such  cases  the  judges  shall  be  notified  and  allowed 
to  execute  justice,  after  which  the  inquisitors  can  inflict  punishment.  In  case  of 
heresy,  however,  a  prisoner  can  be  demanded,  to  be  returned  after  trial,  provided 
he  is  not  sentenced  to  relaxation. 

Familiars  are  not  to  be  protected  in  the  violation  of  municipal  regulations,  nor, 
during  pestilence,  in  the  refusal  to  observe  the  regulations  for  the  avoidance  of 
contagion;  they  must  submit  for  inspection  the  goods  which  they  bring  in  and 


444  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

the  royal  judges  shall  not  be  prevented  from  imposing  the  penalties  provided 
in  the  royal  pragmatica. 

Commissioners  shall  not  form  competencias  with  secular  or  ecclesiastical 
judges,  nor  shall  their  assistants  enjoy  greater  privileges  than  familiars. 

Persons  temporarily  employed  to  make  arrests,  or  to  read  the  edicts,  or  as 
procurators,  etc.,  shall  not  be  defended  by  the  inquisitors. 

As  the  inquisitorial  district  of  Valencia  comprehends  Teruel  in  Aragon  and 
Tortosa  in  Catalonia,  those  places  are  not  to  be  exempted  from  the  Concordia 
under  the  pretext  that  the  Concordia  of  1554  spoke  of  the  kingdom  of  Valencia. 

The  widows  of  officials,  while  remaining  unmarried,  enjoy  both  civil  and 
criminal  fuero,  but  not  their  children  and  families  as  has  been  the  case,  but 
widows  of  familiars  are  deprived  of  it  and  are  not  to  be  defended  by  the  inquisitors. 

The  judge  employed  by  the  inquisitors  to  hear  the  cases  of  officials  and  familiars 
is  to  be  dismissed;  such  cases  are  to  be  heard  by  the  inquisitors  outside  of  the 
regular  hours  of  service  and  for  this  they  are  to  charge  no  fees. 

Servants  and  families  of  salaried  officials  are  only  to  have  the  passive  fuero 
in  civil  cases,  like  familiars. 

Inquisitors  are  no  longer  to  defend  familiars  in  matters  of  the  apportionment 
of  irrigating  waters,  injuries  to  harvests,  vineyards,  pastures,  forests,  furnishing 
of  lights,  licences  for  building,  street-cleaning,  road-mending  and  furnishing  pro- 
visions. 

Inquisitors  are  not  to  publish  edicts  with  excommunication  for  the  discovery 
of  debts,  thefts  or  other  hidden  offences  committed  against  officials  and  familiars, 
nor  such  edicts  against  any  delinquents  save  in  cases  of  heresy. 

Persons  arrested,  except  for  heresy,  are  not  to  be  confined  in  the  secret  prison 
but  in  the  public  one,  where  they  can  confer  with  their  counsel  and  procurators, 
and  they  are  to  be  allowed  to  hear  mass  and  receive  the  sacraments. 

Familiars  holding  office  are  not  to  be  defended  for  official  frauds  or  malfeasance, 
but  the  secular  authorities  are  to  be  freely  allowed  to  administer  justice. 

Inquisitors  shall  not  give  safe-conducts  to  persons  outlawed  or  banished  by 
the  royal  judges,  except  in  cases  of  faith  and  then  only  for  the  time  necessary 
to  appear  before  them. 

When  any  official  or  familiar,  in  criminal  or  civil  cases  not  of  faith,  has  con- 
sented tacitly  or  explicitly  to  the  secular  jurisdiction  or  has  pleaded  clergy,  the 
inquisitors  shall  not  protect  him  nor  inhibit  the  secular  judges.  And  if  any 
official  or  familiar  inherits  property  in  Htigation  the  case  shall  remain  in  the 
court  where  it  is  pending. 

As  familiars  in  civil  cases  have  only  the  passive  and  not  the  active  fuero  there 
shall  no  longer,  as  heretofore,  be  artifices  employed,  such  as  pretended  criminal 
prosecutions  and  interdicts,  to  obtain  cognizance  of  such  cases,  but  they  shall 
be  conducted  in  the  court  of  the  defendant. 

When  a  suit  between  outsiders  has  been  decided,  if  any  official  or  familiar 
intervenes  to  prevent  the  execution  of  the  decision,  on  the  pretext  that  he  is  in 
possession  of  the  property  at  issue  or  a  part  of  it,  the  inquisitors  shall  not  support 
him  in  it. 


Chap.  IV]  VALENCIA  445 

If  an  outsider  commits  a  crime  while  in  company  with  an  official  or  familiar, 
or  is  an  accomplice  in  a  crime  committed  by  an  official  or  familiar,  the  inquisitors 
shall  not  have  cognizance  of  his  case  but  only  of  that  of  the  official  or  familiar. 

When  a  grave  crime  has  been  committed  by  or  against  a  familiar  the  inquisitors 
shall  not  send  a  judge  to  take  testimony  or  punish,  with  salary  by  the  day,  but 
shall  avoid  expense  by  making  a  commissioner  gather  the  evidence. 

Inquisitors  shall  no  longer  enforce  contracts  of  peace  and  truce  unless  they 
have  been  entered  into  before  them  or  by  their  order. 

Inquisitors  shall  not  have  cognizance  of  contracts  between  outsiders  because  of 
a  clause  submitting  them  to  the  fuero,  nor  of  cases  of  donations  or  cession  to 
officials  or  familiars. 

Inquisitors  shall  not  protect  widows  of  officials  and  familiars  in  refusing  to  pay 
imposts  and  contributions. 

When  inquisitors  have  to  summon  secular  judges  before  them  it  must  be  only 
in  cases  where  it  is  unavoidable  and  then  only  with  great  consideration. 

If  a  bankrupt  is  a  familiar  the  inquisitors  have  cognizance,  but  not  in  the  case 
of  an  outsider  under  pretext  that  an  official  or  familiar  is  a  creditor. 

Familiars  shall  not  make  arrests  or  other  execution  of  justice  without  orders 
from  inquisitors. 

Inquisitors  shall  not  proceed  against  the  priors  and  officials  of  guilds  and 
confraternities  who  levy  upon  a  familiar,  who  is  a  member,  for  dues  under  the 
rules  of  the  association,  or  when  a  familiar  has  had  the  administration  of  a  church 
or  hermitage  or  hospital  and  is  sued  for  debts  or  contributions  due.' 

The  other  prayers  and  demands  of  the  Cortes  were  rejected, 
but  those  which  were  granted  sufficiently  indicate  the  abusive 
manner  in  which  the  tribunal  had  extended  its  jurisdiction, 
how  that  jurisdiction  was  admittedly  used  to  protect  officials 
and  famihars  in  violations  of  law,  and  how  intolerable  was  the 
influence  on  municipal  and  commercial  life  of  letting  loose  on  the 
community  a  class  who  were  beyond  the  reach  of  justice.  We 
can  readily  understand  the  eagerness  of  the  lawless  and  unscrupu- 
lous to  obtain  positions  which  secured  for  them  such  privileges 
and  why  it  was  impossible  to  restrain  inquisitors  within  the  pre- 
scribed limits  of  their  appointing  power. 

After  protracted  effort  the  Valencians  had  thus  obtained 
promise  of  substantial  rehef,  but  as  usual  it  was  a  promise  only 
made  to  be  broken.  How  little  intention  there  was  of  enforcing 
the  reform  was  promptly  revealed  for,  when  the  authorities 
naturally  ordered  the  new  Concordia  to  be  printed  so  that  the 
courts  and  rural  magistrates  could  be  guided  by  it  in  their  deal- 
ings with   the   officials  and  familiars,   the  inquisitors   at   once 

1  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130. 


446  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

ordered  the  printers  to  suspend  work  and  appealed  to  the  king, 
who  commanded  that  all  copies  should  be  surrendered/  Although 
the  settlement  was  permanent  and  remained  in  force  until  the 
end,  it  apparently  never  was  pubHshed  for  general  information. 
At  the  moment  it  was  regarded  as  greatly  limiting  the  secular 
jurisdiction  of  the  tribunal,  and  the  worthy  Valencian  inquisitor, 
Juan  de  Rojas,  says  that  he  is  ashamed  to  allude  to  its  depressed 
and  weakened  condition,  which  has  worked  great  injury  to  the 
faith.^  His  grief  was  superfluous;  the  tribunal  was  not  accus- 
tomed to  be  bound  by  law  and  its  methods  of  enforcing  its 
assumed  prerogatives  were  difficult  to  resist.  In  1585  the  Cortes 
had  a  fresh  accumulation  of  grievances  which,  by  order  of  the 
king,  the  Suprema  sent  to  the  inquisitors  with  orders  to  report  the 
method  of  meeting  them  most  advantageous  to  the  Holy  Office.' 
If  space  permitted  abundant  cases  could  be  cited  to  show  the 
justice  of  these  complaints.  In  fact,  the  correspondence  between 
the  Suprema  and  the  tribunal,  during  the  last  fifteen  years  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  is  largely  devoted  to  cases  of  competencias 
arising  from  crimes  of  all  descriptions  committed  by  familiars  and 
to  the  punishments  inflicted  by  the  tribunal,  the  heaviest  of 
which  is  the  galleys,  in  two  or  three  cases.  Sometimes  the  charges 
are  dismissed  and  as  a  whole  the  criminals  seem  to  have  escaped 
so  lightly  that  prosecution  only  served  to  encourage  their  law- 
lessness.'* There  was  no  improvement  as  time  went  on  and  a 
case  occurring  in  1632  is  worth  alluding  to  as  illustrating  the 
results  of  the  juero  and  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  administered 
by  the  tribunal.  Don  Martin  Santis  was  murdered  by  pistol 
shots,  while  returning  with  some  Dominican  frailes  in  a  coach 
from  the  Grao  of  Valencia  to  the  city.  Four  notorious  familiars, 
Pedro  Rebert,  Joan  Ciurana,  Jaime  Blau  and  Calixto  Taf alia,  were 
suspected  and  were  arrested  by  the  Audiencia.  The  tribunal 
claimed  them,  a  competencia  was  formed  and  the  case  came  up 
before  the  Suprema  and  the  Council  of  Aragon.  The  Marquis  of 
los  Velez,  the  viceroy,  took  advantage  of  it  to  represent  to  Philip 
IV  the  disorders  and  scandals  caused  by  the  criminal  familiars 
who  were  protected  by  the  Inquisition.  This  paper  was  referred 
to  the  Council  of  Aragon  which,  on  July  21st,  presented  a  consulta 
on  the  subject.    There  is,  it  says,  no  peace  or  safety  to  be  hoped 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libre  688,  fol.  59. 
'  Rojas  de  HEereticis,  P.  i,  n.  446. 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Cartas  del  Conseje,  Leg.  5,  n. 
1,  fol.  150.  *  Ibidem. 


Chap.  IV]  VALENCIA  447 

for  in  Valencia  unless  there  is  reform  in  the  selection  of  familiars, 
for  there  is  no  crime  committed  there  in  which  they  are  not  prin- 
cipals or  accomplices,  in  the  confidence  of  escape  through  the 
intervention  of  the  tribunal,  since  there  is  no  one,  however  guilty- 
he  may  be  of  atrocious  crime,  who  is  not  speedily  seen  walking 
the  streets  in  freedom.  In  all  disturbances,  famihars  are  recog- 
nized as  ringleaders  and  their  object  in  gaining  appointment  is 
only  to  enjoy  immunity  for  their  crimes.  In  Valencia,  Pedro 
Revert,  Joan  Ciurana  and  Sebastian  Adell,  all  familiars,  are  the 
chief  disturbers  of  the  peace.  So  in  Villareal,  a  place  notorious  for 
murders,  Jaime  Blau  has  been  the  moving  spirit.  In  Benignamin, 
where  there  are  constant  outbreaks,  the  leaders  of  the  factions 
are  Gracian  Espana,  Martin  Barcela  and  others,  hkewise  famil- 
iars. It  is  the  same  in  Orihuela  with  Juan  Garcia  de  Espejo  and 
others.  Scarce  anywhere  is  there  trouble  in  which  familiars  are 
not  concerned  and  they  daily  become  more  insolent  through 
impunity,  for  the  inquisitors  never  punish  with  the  requisite 
severity.  One  result  is  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  procure 
evidence  against  these  malefactors,  in  consequence  of  witnesses 
knowing  that  they  will  shortly  be  released  and  will  avenge  them- 
selves. Justice  cannot  be  administered  and  still  greater  evils 
are  to  be  anticipated  if  the  king  does  not  provide  a  remedy.  If 
it  is  difficult  to  revise  the  Concordia  and  introduce  the  necessary 
provisions,  at  least  the  king  can  order  that  these  familiars  be 
dismissed  and  greater  care  be  exercised  in  new  appointments. 
All  the  viceroys  have  recognized  these  impediments  to  justice, 
for  these  people  only  seek  exemption  from  the  secular  courts  in 
order  to  be  free  to  commit  crimes. 

We  might  imagine  much  of  this  to  be  exaggeration  were  not 
its  truth  tacitly  admitted  by  the  Suprema,  when  transmitting  it 
to  Valencia  with  instructions  for  information  on  which  to  base 
a  reply.  There  is  no  rebuke  or  exhortation  to  amendment, 
but  the  inquisitors  are  told  to  act  with  the  utmost  caution  and 
secrecy;  to  report  the  number  of  familiars  in  Valencia  and  how 
many  are  unmarried;  to  give  details  as  to  the  cases  cited  by  the 
Council  of  Aragon  and  what  punishments  were  inflicted;  what 
was  the  record  of  those  inculpated  in  the  murder  of  Don  Martin 
Santis;  covertly  to  obtain  statistics  of  crime  in  Valencia  for  the 
last  ten  years,  committed  by  those  not  exempt,  the  punishments 
inflicted  by  the  royal  court  and  whether  these  were  subsequently 
remitted;  whether,  when  familiars  were  tried  by  the  tribunal, 


448  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

accomplices  were  prosecuted  in  the  royal  courts,  and  if  so  what 
sentences  were  pronounced;  also  to  make  secret  investigation  as 
to  promises  made  to  familiars  by  the  judges  to  let  them  off  easily 
if  they  would  not  claim  the  fuero,  and  finally  to  furnish  a  list  of 
cases  in  which  the  tribunal  has  punished  its  officials  for  trifiing 
offences.  Altogether  the  effort  was  evidently  much  less  to  offer 
a  justification  than  to  make  a  iu  quoque  rejoinder.  Apparently 
the  statistics  asked  of  the  tribunal  were  unsatisfactory,  for  there 
was  no  use  made  of  them  in  the  answer  presented  October  6th,  in 
which,  after  seeking  to  explain  away  the  assertions  of  the  viceroy 
and  Council  of  Aragon,  the  Suprema  accused  the  secular  courts 
and  their  officials  of  perpetual  prosecution  of  familiars,  who  were 
arrested  on  the  slightest  suspicion,  assumed  to  be  guilty  and 
then  forced  by  cruel  treatment  to  renounce  the  fuero.  The 
suggestions  for  reform  were  airily  brushed  aside.  To  dismiss 
delinquent  familiars  would  be  almost  impossible,  in  view  of  its 
effect  upon  their  families  and  kindred.  To  enquire  of  the  royal 
officials  as  to  the  character  of  aspirants  for  appointment  was 
inadmissible,  as  it  would  admit  them  to  participation  in  a  matter 
with  which  they  had  nothing  to  do.  The  true  cure  for  the 
troubles  would  be  to  secure  the  Inquisition  in  its  rights  by  for- 
bidding the  secular  courts  from  assuming  any  jurisdiction  over 
familiars.  In  short  it  was  a  passionate  outburst,  precluding  all 
hope  of  amendment,  to  which  the  king  replie4  by  telling  the 
Suprema  to  see  that  the  tribunal  did  not  employ  violent  measures 
against  the  royal  officials,  but  report  to  him  any  excess  for  his 
action.  Evidently  nothing  was  to  be  hoped  for  from  him  and 
indeed  he  had  written  on  August  6th  to  the  viceroy  that  the  case 
must  take  its  regular  course  as  a  competencia  and  the  inquisi- 
tors must  not  use  inhibitory  censures  or  summon  the  judges  to 
appear  before  them.  The  result  was  the  usual  one  that  the  tri- 
bunal obtained  cognizance  of  the  case;  one,  at  least,  of  the 
accused,  Jaime  Blau,  was  found  guilty,  for  we  have  his  insuflEi- 
cient  sentence,  condemning  him  to  exile  and  a  fine  of  three 
hundred  ducats — a  sentence  which  goes  far  to  explain  the  eager- 
ness of  the  inquisitors  to  extend  their  jurisdiction,  for  they  rarely 
inflicted  corporal  punishments  on  their  delinquent  officials,  when 
pecuniary  ones  were  so  much  more  profitable.* 

*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  1,  fol.  766;  Leg.  8,  n. 
2,  fol.  171,  172,  200,  219,  277,  322,  440,  442.— Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion, 
Lib.  20,  fol.  134-42. 


Chap.  IV]  VALENCIA  449 

The  same  spirit  was  shown  when,  in  1649,  disturbances  between 
armed  bands  led  PhiUp  IV  to  order  the  Suprema  to  instruct  the 
inquisitors  that  familiars  and  officials  participating  in  these 
brawls,  or  lending  aid  to  peacebreakers,  should  not  enjoy  the 
fuero  and  that  the  tribunal  should  not  defend  them  or  interfere 
with  the  course  of  justice.  Instead  of  obeying,  the  Suprema 
replied  that  it  suspended  the  order  until  the  king  should  be  better 
informed.  It  then  proceeded  with  a  long  argument  to  show  that 
the  faith  would  be  imperilled  by  such  abridgement  of  the  privi- 
leges of  the  Holy  OfRce.  Besides,  these  factional  contests  had 
always  been  customary  in  Valencia  and  it  was  impossible  to 
avoid  favoring  one  side  or  the  other,  for  these  armed  bands 
demanded  whatever  they  wanted — money,  or  food  or  clothes — 
and  people  were  forced  to  give  it  at  the  risk  of  having  their  har- 
vests burnt  or  their  throats  cut.  The  consulta  ended  with  the 
impudent  suggestion  that  in  future  it  would  be  much  better  for 
the  king,  before  issuing  such  decrees,  to  communicate  to  the 
Suprema  the  consultas  of  the  other  councils  on  which  they  were 
based  so  that  a  juata  could  be  formed  and  the  matter  be  debated.^ 

Evidently  the  Suprema  held  that  this  semi-savage  state  of 
society  should  be  encouraged  by  favoring  the  factionists  and, 
under  such  conditions,  amelioration  was  impossible.  Rivalry  of 
jurisdiction  paralyzed  the  law  and  there  was  perpetual  friction 
over  the  veriest  trifles,  for  the  tribunal  was  always  on  the  watch 
to  resist  the  minutest  infraction  of  its  prerogatives  or  disregard  of 
its  dignity.  When,  in  1702,  Jacinto  Nadal,  a  familiar  of  Onten- 
iente,  received  a  summons  to  appear  before  Don  Pedro  Dom- 
enech,  a  criminal  judge  of  the  Audiencia,  he  at  once  appealed  to 
the  tribunal  which  sent  word,  on  May  29th,  that  he  had  been 
under  arrest  since  March  25th  and  the  papers  in  any  charge 
against  him  must  be  surrendered  to  it.  It  turned  out  that 
Domenech  only  wanted  him  to  enter  security  for  his  son  and, 
when  this  was  done,  the  inquisitors  complained  that  Nadal  had 
done  wrong  in  going  to  the  judge  after  appealing  to  them,  and 
that  Domenech  had  not  treated  them  with  proper  respect,  so 
that  some  months  were  required  to  arrange  a  truce  between  them.^ 

Aragon  was  a  source  of  greater  trouble  than  Valencia.  The 
popular  spirit  was  more  independent,  it  had  resisted  the  intro- 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  38,  fol.  14. 
*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  3,  foL  26. 

29 


450  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  11 

duction  of  the  Inquisition  until  the  murder  of  San  Pedro  Arbues 
had  rendered  further  opposition  impossible,  it  had  been  cheated 
of  the  fruits  of  the  tenacity  of  Juan  Prat  and  it  possessed  an 
institution  peculiar  to  itself,  designed  to  limit  the  encroachments 
of  the  sovereign  power  and  well  adapted  to  restrain  the  arrogance 
of  anything  less  formidable  than  the  mingled  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  Office. 

The  origin  of  the  court  of  the  Justicia  of  Aragon  was  fondly 
attributed  by  the  Aragonese  to  the  legendary  times  of  the  king- 
dom of  Sobrarve  and  there  is  fair  probability  in  the  theory  of 
the  latest  writer  on  the  subject  that  it  was  derived  by  the  Chris- 
tians from  the  conquered  Moors/  In  the  thirteenth  century  the 
Justicia  was  already  judge  between  the  king  and  his  subjects; 
every  precaution  was  taken  to  render  him  independent;  he  was 
irremovable  by  the  king  and  even  his  resignation  was  void;  he 
could  accept  no  office  from  the  king;  he  was  not  liable  to  arrest 
and  in  a  case  of  prosecution  the  Cortes  sat  in  judgement  on  him; 
every  person  in  the  kingdom  was  required  to  obey  his  commands, 
to  respect  his  decisions  and  to  aid  in  their  enforcement.  His 
court  consisted  of  his  assessors  or  lieutenants,  originally  appointed 
by  him,  but  subsequently  by  the  king.  The  Cortes  of  1528 
increased  the  number  to  five,  submitting  fifteen  names  to  Charles 
V,  who  selected  five,  while  the  rest  were  placed  in  a  holsa  and 
drawn  as  vacancies  occurred.  They  were  virtually  the  equals 
of  the  Justicia,  for  the  assent  of  a  majority  was  required  in  all 
judgements  and  all  precautions  were  taken  to  secure  their  inde- 
pendence.* It  is  true  that,  in  spite  of  the  inviolability  of  the 
Justicia,  there  were  cases  on  record  in  which  Justicias  had  been 
made  way  with  and  that,  on  the  suppression  of  the  rising  caused 
by  Antonio  Perez,  in  1591,  the  Justicia,  Juan  de  Lanuza,  was 
beheaded  without  trial,  and  in  the  ensuing  Cortes  of  Tarazona 
the  appointment  of  both  Justicia  and  lieutenants  was  surren- 
dered to  the  king.^  Nevertheless  the  court  of  the  Justicia  was 
regarded  by  the  Aragonese  with  the  greatest  pride  and  reverence, 
as  the  safeguard  of  their  liberties  and  the  highest  expression  of 

*  Blancas,  Aragonensium  Rerum  Cominentarii,  p.  26  (Cspsaraugustse,  1598). 
— Julian  Ribera,  Origines  del  Justicia  de  Aragon  (Zaragoza,  1897). 

^  Fueros  y  Observancias  del  Reyno  de  Aragon,  Lib.  i,  fol.  21-3;  Lib.  ni,  foL 
69-84  (Zaragoza,  1624). — Actosde  Cortes  del  Reyno  de  Aragon,  fol.  1  (Zaragoza, 
1664). — Blancas,  o-p.  cit.,  p.  361. 

*  Ribera,  op.  cit.,  p.  182. — Blancas,  op.  cit.,  p.  499. — Argensola,  Infonnacion  de 
Ids  Sucesos  del  Reino  de  Aragon,  cap.  xlv,  Iv  (Madrid,  1808), 


Chap.  IV]  ABA  G  ON  451 

judicial  authority  existing  in  the  world;  it  was  the  bond  that 
united  the  state  and  the  foundation  of  its  tranquillity.  When 
the  Justicia  authorized  the  cry  of  Contrafuero!  Viva  la  Libertad 
y  ayuda  a  la  Libertad!  it  summoned  every  citizen  to  sally  forth 
in  arms  to  defend  the  liberties  of  the  land.  Moreover,  he  had  the 
power  of  withholding  from  execution  all  papal  decrees,  and  his 
authority  in  ecclesiastical  matters  in  general  caused  him  to  be 
popularly  termed  the  married  pope.^ 

So  far  as  we  are  concerned,  the  power  of  the  court  was  exercised 
through  two  processes,  the  manifestacion  and  the  firma.  The 
former  was  a  kind  of  habeas  corpus,  under  which  a  person  had 
to  be  produced  before  it,  either  to  be  liberated  on  bail  or  to  be 
confined  in  the  carcel  de  manifestados — a  special  prison  over  which 
even  the  king  had  no  jurisdiction.  The  summons  of  a  mani- 
festacion had  to  be  obeyed,  even  if  the  subject  were  on  the  gallows 
with  the  halter  around  his  neck,  or  if  it  was  addressed  to  the 
highest  secular  or  spiritual  court  of  the  land.  It  was  a  privilege 
to  which  every  citizen  was  entitled;  when,  in  1532,  Charles  V 
sent  orders  that  Don  Pedro  de  Luna  should  be  deprived  of  it, 
he  was  not  obeyed,  and  a  special  envoy  was  sent  to  him  in  Ger- 
many, asking  the  prompt  withdrawal  of  the  command  as,  until 
the  return  of  the  messenger,  the  land  would  be  in  great  suspense. 
The  firina  was  of  various  kinds,  but  in  general  it  was  of  the  nature 
of  an  injunction,  stopping  all  proceedings  and  summoning  the 
parties  before  the  court  of  the  Justicia,  where  their  cases  would 
be  determined,  and  it  was  especially  useful  in  preventing  arbi- 
trary arrests  and  seizure  of  property.  Failure  to  obey  a  firma 
was  promptly  followed  by  seizure  of  temporalities  and,  under  a 
fuero  of  King  Martin,  it  could  be  served  on  the  king  himself. 
One  was  served  on  Charles  V,  at  Valladolid,  and  again  one  on  the 
papal  nuncio  and,  when  the  latter  disregarded  it,  his  temporalities 
were  sequestrated.  Such  a  jurisdiction  could  not  fail  to  come 
into  collision  with  the  Inquisition,  against  which  its  powers  were 
frequently  invoked,  and  the  favorite  device  of  the  tribunal,  of 
evading  service  by  closing  its  doors,  was  unavailing,  for  attach- 
ing the  firma  to  the  gates  was  held  to  be  legal  service.  In  1561, 
the  Justicia  granted  a  manifestacion  to  Don  Juan  Frances  del 
Arino,  in  a  case  not  of  faith ;  the  tribunal  prepared  to  answer  by 
fulminating  excommunications,  but  the  court  issued  a  moniiorio 

'  Blasco  de  Lanuza,  Historias  de  Aragon,  II,  143  (Zaragoza,  1622).— Blancas, 
op.  cit.,  Epist.  praelim. ,  p.  2. — Macanaz,  Regalfas  de  los  Reyes  de  Aragon,  pp.  85, 91. 


452  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

against  it,  when  a  settlement  was  reached  which  both  parties 
considered  satisfactory.  In  the  same  year,  when  the  inquisitors 
arrested  Bartolome  Garate,  secretary  of  the  com"t,  it  served  a 
monitorio  upon  them  and,  in  1563,  it  did  the  same  for  the  cen- 
sures issued  against  Augustin  de  Morlanes,  of  the  criminal  council 
of  the  Audiencia.  In  1626,  when  Pedro  Banet,  secretary  of  the 
tribunal,  was  accused  of  the  murder  of  Juan  Domingo  Serveto, 
the  action  of  the  inquisitors  led  to  the  issue  against  them  of  a 
firma  and  monitorio,  under  which  their  temporalities  were  seized 
and  this  was  followed  by  another  firma,  prohibiting  the  use  of 
excommunication.^ 

Under  such  institutions,  animated  by  such  a  spirit,  it  was 
inevitable  that  the  extension  of  the  temporal  jurisdiction  of  the 
Holy  Office  should  provoke  a  bitter  and  prolonged  conflict.  We 
have  seen  the  early  struggles  of  this;  how  concessions  were  wrung 
from  monarch  and  Inquisition,  to  be  disregarded  by  them  as  soon 
as  the  momentary  pressure  had  passed,  and  how  the  remon- 
strances of  the  Cortes  of  1528  and  1533  were  contemptuously 
brushed  aside.  The  grievances  were  real  and  the  Suprema  knew 
them  to  be  such,  but  the  policy  was  invariable  of  denying  their 
existence  and  refusing  amendment  when  asked  for  by  the  suf- 
ferers. The  temper  in  which  complaints  were  heard  was  signifi- 
cantly manifested  when,  in  1533,  the  Cortes  of  Monzon  adopted 
certain  articles  and  presented  them  to  Inquisitor-general  Man- 
rique  and  the  Suprema,  with  the  request  that  they  should  be 
adopted.  Thereupon  Miguel  de  Galbe,  fiscal  of  the  tribunal  of 
Lerida,  addressed  to  Manrique  a  formal  accusation,  naming  four 
members  of  the  Cortes,  who  seem  to  have  been  the  committee 
deputed  to  communicate  with  the  Suprema,  asking  that  they 
and  all  who  had  advocated  the  articles  should  be  prosecuted  as 
f autors  of  heretics  and  impeders  and  disturbers  of  the  Inquisition, 
while  the  articles  in  question  should  be  publicly  torn  and  burnt 
as  condemned  and  suspect  of  heresy,  injurious  to  the  honor  of 
God  and  prejudicial  to  the  Holy  Office.*  Parfiamentary  discus- 
sion had  doubtless  been  warm  and  freedom  of  debate  and  legis- 
lation was  contrary  to  the  principles  of  the  Holy  Ofiice.  Possibly 
it  was  the  unpleasant  experience  of  the  Suprema  on  this  occasion 

*  Fueros  y  Observancias  del  Reyno  de  Aragon,  Lib.  i,  fol.  23. — Dormer, 
Afiales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  Ix. — Blancas,  op.  cit.,  pp.  350-1. — Archivo  de  la 
Corona  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528,  n.  4. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  262. 
— Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Mm,  fol.  122.  ^  MS.  penes  me. 


Chap.  IV]  ABAGON  453 

that  led  it  to  keep  away  from  the  Cortes  of  Monzon  in  1537  and 
to  order  the  inquisitors  to  do  Hkewise  or,  if  their  duties  called  them 
there,  to  keep  silent.  Thus,  when  the  Cortes  asked  the  emperor 
to  make  the  Inquisition  obey  the  laws,  he  was  able  to  promise 
accordingly  and  then  the  Suprema  could  subsequently  argue  it 
away  in  a  consulta/ 

The  remedial  decree  of  Prince  Philip,  in  1545,  was  Hmited  to 
Castile,  and  Aragon  was  coolly  told  that  its  customs  were  different. 
Abuses  continued  unchecked  and  at  the  Cortes  of  Monzon,  in 
1547,  a  long  series  of  grievances  was  presented  to  the  inquisitor- 
general,  as  though  the  crown  had  ceased  to  be  a  factor.  The  bull 
Pastoralis  officii,  by  which  Leo  X  had  confirmed  the  Concordia 
of  1512,  had  hmited  the  number  of  familiars  to  ten  perma- 
nent ones  in  Saragossa  and  ten  temporary  ones  elsewhere  as 
needed,  in  place  of  which  the  number  was  between  five  hundred 
and  a  thousand;  the  bull  had  prescribed  that  they  should  be 
married  men  of  good  character,  in  place  of  which  many  were 
bandits  and  homicides  and  of  notoriously  evil  hfe;  the  bull  had 
ordered  dismissal  for  officials  and  familiars  who  did  not  pay  their 
debts  or  who  engaged  in  trade,  whereas  the  fuero  was  held  to 
cover  debts  contracted  and  offences  committed  prior  to  appoint- 
ment; when  they  became  bankrupt  they  took  refuge  with  the 
tribunal  and  the  creditors  were  unpaid;  if  they  were  creditors  of 
a  bankrupt  they  seized  all  the  assets  and  others  got  nothing; 
men  procured  appointments  in  order  to  revenge  themselves  in 
safety  on  their  enemies ;  it  was  impossible  to  collect  debts  of  them 
and  this  protection  was  extended  even  to  women.  A  woman  who 
claimed  that  her  father  had  been  a  familiar  was  thus  defended 
from  her  creditors;  the  brother  of  a  notary  of  the  tribunal,  who 
had  committed  an  offence,  caused  the  aggrieved  parties  to  be 
arrested  and  the  inquisitors  held  them  until  they  were  forced  to 
a  compromise.  How  little  hope  there  was  of  redress  for  all  this 
is  visible  in  the  contemptuous  indifference  with  which  Inquisitor- 
general  Valdes  answered  the  several  articles.  As  to  bandits  and 
homicides  being  made  famihars,  he  said  the  Inquisition  had  need 
of  all  kinds  of  officials  for  its  various  functions,  and  as  to  the  spe- 
cific complaints  the  stereotyped  answer  was  that  any  one  deem- 
ing himself  aggrieved  could  appeal  to  the  Suprema  and  get  justice.* 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  78,  fol.  145,  192. 

*  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  I  de  copias,  fol.  219. — Archive  de 
Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  922,  fol.  12. 


454  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

The  Concordia  of  1553  was  applicable  to  Castile  alone  and  that 
of  1554  to  Valencia.  Aragon  remained  without  the  slender  alle- 
viation provided  for  in  the  latter,  for  the  adjustments  of  1512  and 
1521  were  treated  as  non-existent.  At  the  Cortes  of  1563-4  the 
complaints  were  so  vivacious  that,  as  we  have  seen,  Philip  prom- 
ised investigation  which  resulted  in  the  Concorcha  of  1568.  The 
formula  for  Aragon  was  virtually  the  same  as  the  combined 
Valencia  Concordias  of  1554  and  1568,  the  evils  with  which  the 
two  kingdoms  were  afflicted  being  virtually  the  same.  As 
usual,  familiars  were  the  class  that  excited  the  bitterest  hostility. 
Their  commissions  were  all  to  be  called  in  and  then  sixty  were  to 
be  appointed  for  Saragossa,  while  the  other  towns  were  assigned 
from  eight  to  one  or  two  according  to  population.  Their  char- 
acter was  to  be  closely  scrutinized  and  all  bandits,  homicides, 
criminals,  powerful  nobles,  frailes  and  clerics  were  to  be  excluded, 
and  no  one  was  to  enjoy  the  fuero  whose  name  was  not  on  lists 
presented  to  the  magistrates.  They  were  to  have,  in  criminal 
matters,  the  active  and  passive  fuero  but  in  civil  suits  only  the 
passive;  it  was  the  same  with  servants  of  officials,  while  officials 
themselves  had  active  and  passive  in  both  civil  and  criminal. 
The  utmost  caution  and  moderation  was  prescribed  in  the  employ- 
ment of  inhibitions  and  excommunications  of  the  royal  judges, 
and  the  royal  alguazils  were  not  to  be  arrested  save  in  cases  of 
grave  and  notorious  infraction  of  inquisitorial  rights.^ 

The  Concorcha  did  not  bring  concord.  In  1571  there  arose  a 
bitter  dispute  between  the  tribunal  and  the  court  of  the  Justicia, 
in  which  -excommunications  were  freely  used  and,  in  December, 
the  Diputados  appealed  to  Pius  V  to  evoke  the  case  and  remove 
the  censures,  but  he  told  them  to  go  to  the  inquisitor-general. 
After  the  death  of  Pius,  the  kingdom  insisted  with  Gregory  XIII 
and,  in  December,  1572,  obtained  from  him  a  brief  committing 
the  case  to  the  Suprema  or  to  Ponce  de  Leon  the  new  inquisitor- 
general,  but,  at  the  same  time,  he  ordered  that  some  remedy  be 
found  to  prevent  the  inquisitors  from  abusing  the  privileges 
conceded  to  them  by  the  canons  and  the  popes.^  The  next  year, 
1573,  formal  complaints  were  made  by  the  kingdom  of  infrac- 
tions of  the  Concordia  and,  by  1585,  aggravation  had  reached  a 
point  that  the  Cortes  asked  for  a  new  concordia.  Philip  promised 
to  send  a  person  to  Saragossa  to  gather  information  as  to  griev- 

*  Actos  de  Corte  del  Reyno  de  Aragon,  fol.  94-6  (Zaragoza,  1664). 
»  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  108,  n.  38;  Dd,  145,  fol.  352. 


Chap.  IV]  ARAGON  455 

ances  alleged  against  certain  inquisitors  and  officials,  after  which 
arrangements  were  made  for  the  drafting  and  acceptance  or 
rejection  of  a  new  agreement,  but  there  is  no  trace  of  any- 
resultant  understanding/  Quarrelling  necessarily  continued  with 
little  intermission.  In  1613  the  removal  of  the  name  of  Juan 
Porquet,  a  familiar,  from  insaculacion,  by  the  royal  commissioner 
of  Tamarit,  gave  rise  to  a  great  disturbance  which  was  long 
remembered  and,  in  1619,  there  was  a  clash  between  the  tribunal 
and  the  captain-general,  which  caused  much  scandal,  resulting 
in  the  governor  being  summoned  to  Madrid,  where  he  was  kept 
for  four  years.^ 

Thus  it  went  on  until,  in  1626,  the  Cortes  were  again  assembled. 
It  was  known  that  demands  for  relief  would  be  made  and  the 
Suprema  asked  Philip  to  submit  to  it  whatever  articles  were  pro- 
posed, in  reply  to  which  he  assured  it  that  there  should  be  no 
change  to  its  prejudice,  but  that  he^would  procure  its  increase  of 
privilege.'  The  chief  business  of  the  Cortes  was  the  questions 
connected  with  the  Inquisition.  Philip  was  not  present  and  his 
representative,  the  Count  of  Monterrey,  did  not  feel  empowered 
to  grant  the  demands  made.  The  only  absolute  action  taken 
was  to  adopt  as  a  fuero  or  law  the  Concordia  of  1568,  which 
hitherto  had  only  the  authority  of  the  orders  of  the  king  and 
inquisitor-general.  As  regards  reform,  it  was  left  to  a  commis- 
sion, consisting  on  one  side  of  royal  appointees  and  on  the  other 
of  four  delegates  named  by  each  of  the  four  hrazos  or  estates. 
The  commission  framed  a  series  of  fourteen  articles,  by  no  means 
radical  in  their  character,  but  Philip  procrastinated  in  confirming 
or  rejecting  them;  the  Suprema,  in  1627,  appealed  to  Rome  to 
withhold  papal  sanction  and  they  were  quietly  allowed  to  drop, 
on  the  pretext  that  the  Concordia  of  1568,  now  erected  into  law, 
would  suffice  to  prevent  future  grounds  of  complaint.  How 
futile  this  was  is  apparent  from  a  conflict  which  occurred  during 
the  sitting  of  the  commission.  The  assessor  of  the  governor,  as 
was  his  duty,  entered  the  house  of  the  secretary  of  the  tribunal, 
flagrante  delicto,  for  a  most  treacherous  murder  attributed  to  him. 
Although  his  obligation  to  do  this  was  notorious,  arrest  of  sub- 
ordinates followed  on  both  sides  and  the  indignant  people  were 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  lib.  82,  fol.  84. — Fueros  de  Aragon,  fol. 
222  (Zaragoza,  1624).    Cf.  Dormer,  Anales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  11,  cap.  xxxviii. 
»  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Mm,  464. 
*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  30,  fol.  474. 


456  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

with  difficulty  restrained  from  a  tumult.  The  royal  officials  at 
once  took  steps  to  form  a  competencia,  in  conformity  with  the 
Concordia  which  had  just  been  erected  into  a  law;  this  required  all 
proceedings  to  be  suspended  but  the  inquisitors  excommunicated 
the  assessor,  refusing  to  join  in  the  competencia  because,  as  they 
asserted,  the  case  was  an  evident  one,  thus  assuming  that  they 
could  set  aside  all  law  by  merely  declaring  that  a  case  was  evident.^ 
The  Inquisition  had  never  been  restrained  by  the  Concordia 
and  now  that  it  had  again  baffled  the  Cortes  it  was  still  less 
inclined  to  submit  to  restraint.  Quarrels  continued  as  virulent 
as  before,  a  single  example  of  which  will  illustrate  its  invincible 
tendency  to  extend  its  jurisdiction  on  all  possible  pretexts. 
Berenguer  de  San  Vicente  of  Huesca,  in  1534,  had  founded  in 
that  city  the  College  of  Santiago  and  when,  in  1538,  the  munici- 
pality added  an  endowment  of  more  than  six  thousand  ducats, 
he  made  the  magistrates  its  patrons.  In  1542  he  procured  from 
Charles  V  a  cedula,  confirmed  by  the  pope,  making  the  inquisitors 
of  Aragon  visitors  or  inspectors  of  the  college,  during  the  royal 
pleasure  and  so  long  as  they  should  perform  their  functions 
loyally  and  well.  This  supervisory  function  they  stretched  in 
course  of  time  to  bring  the  college  and  all  its  members  under  their 
jurisdiction,  although  in  1643  it  was  asserted  that  the  last  visita- 
tion had  been  made  in  1624.  This  power  they  exercised  in  most 
arbitrary  fashion.  When  an  attempt  was  made  to  burn  the  col- 
lege and  the  town  offered  a  reward  for  the  detection  of  the  incen- 
diary, they  interposed  with  the  threat  of  an  interdict  and  fright- 
ened the  citizens  into  submission.  In  1643  a  pasquinade  against 
some  of  the  inhabitants  led  to  the  prosecution  of  the  rector  of  the 
college.  Dr.  Juan  Lorenzo  Salas,  who  promptly  procured  letters 
from  the  tribunal  inhibiting  further  proceedings  and  demanding 
all  the  papers.  The  patience  of  Huesca  was  exhausted.  It 
declared  its  position  to  be  intolerable,  for  the  students  appealed 
to  the  fuero  in  all  disputes  with  the  townsmen,  and  the  result  of 
the  stimulus  thus  given  to  that  turbulent  element  was  driving 
away  the  population  and  every  one  lived  in  apprehension  of  some 
terrible  event.  To  gain  relief  it  applied  to  the  Audiencia  for  a 
competencia  but  was  told  that  this  was  impossible,  whereupon 
it  obtained  from  the  court  of  the  Justicia  a  ftrma  prohibiting  the 

'  Fueros  y  Actos  de  los  Cortes  de  Barbastro  y  de  Calatayud,  pp.  20-22,  55-6 
(Zaragoza,  1626). — Archive  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528. — Archive  de 
Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  1,  fol.  12. 


Chap.  IV]  ARAGON  457 

inquisitors  from  acting;  they  refused  to  allow  it  to  be  served 
when  it  was  put  on  the  gate  of  the  Aljaferia  with  notice  that  if 
answer  was  not  made  within  thirty  days  it  would  be  followed 
with  exile  and  seizure  of  temporalities.  The  Suprema  ordered  the 
inquisitors  to  answer  by  excommunicating  all  concerned.  Philip 
was  then  in  Saragossa,  on  his  way  to  Catalonia  to  put  himself  at 
the  head  of  his  army,  for  the  disgrace  of  Olivares  had  forced  him 
to  govern  as  well  as  to  reign,  but  he  was  compelled  to  distract  his 
thoughts  with  these  miserable  squabbles.  The  Council  of  Aragon 
appealed  to  him  to  require  the  inquisitors  to  show  cause  why 
they  should  not  be  deprived  of  the  visitation  and  to  impose  silence 
on  all  until  he  should  reach  a  decision;  the  Audiencia  rendered 
an  opinion  that  the  court  of  the  Justicia  could  not  refuse  to  issue 
the  firma  and,  if  the  complainant  insisted  on  its  service,  it  must 
be  served  if  the  whole  power  of  the  kingdom  had  to  be  called 
upon.  On  the  other  hand  the  Suprema  declared  that  the  service 
of  the  firma  was  unexampled  and  urged  the  king  to  support  the 
Inquisition  in  a  matter  on  which  depended  the  ruin  or  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  monarchy,  for  it  would  be  better  to  close  the 
Holy  Office  than  to  expose  its  jurisdiction  to  such  disgrace, 
while  in  these  calamitous  times  favor  shown  to  the  Inquisition 
would  placate  God  and  insure  the  success  of  his  arms.  Philip's 
reply  was  long  and  maundering,  irresolute  between  his  reverence 
for  the  Inquisition  and  his  fear  of  alienating  in  his  extremity  the 
Aragonese  by  violating  their  most  cherished  privileges.  If  Huesca 
would  desist  from  the  service  of  the  firma  he  would  order  the 
tribunal  to  form  a  competencia.  Huesca,  however,  was  intract- 
able; its  very  existence,  it  asserted,  was  at  stake  and  it  begged 
the  king  not  to  interfere  with  the  legal  remedies  to  which  it  had 
been  forced  and,  in  conveying  this  reply  to  the  king,  the  Council 
of  Aragon  warned  him  that  it  could  not  prevent  Huesca  from 
serving  the  firma,  as  this  would  be  a  notorious  violation  of  the 
law  on  the  point  regarded  by  the  kingdom  as  most  essential. 
Yet,  after  all,  the  question  was  evaded  by  the  device  of  appointing 
as  visitor  of  the  college  the  inquisitor  Juan  Llano  de  Valcles,  who 
succeeded  in  reaching  an  agreement  with  the  city.  It  would 
seem  that  thereafter  special  visitors  were  nominated  for,  in  1665, 
we  hear  of  such  an  appointment  issued  to  Inquisitor  Carlos  del 
Hoya  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  Huesca  gained  much.^ 

*  Archive  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528,  n.  4. — Archivo  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  127;  Lib.  38,  fol.  205,  209,  262,  280,  290. 


458  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

These  disturbances  mark  the  highest  point  reached  by  the 
Inquisition  in  Aragon  as  regards  its  temporal  jurisdiction.  How 
Uttle  cause  of  complaint  it  really  had,  and  how  Aragon,  in  spite 
of  its  sturdy  independence,  had  endured  greater  abuses  than 
those  permitted  in  Castile,  is  evinced  in  a  suggestion  made  by 
the  Suprema,  February  11,  1643,  in  response  to  a  demand  from 
the  king  to  devise  some  new  source  of  raising  money  for  the  bank- 
rupt treasury.  This  was  that  if  he  would  grant  to  the  familiars 
of  Castile  the  same  privileges  of  active  and  passive  fuero  enjoyed 
by  those  of  Aragon,  they  would  cheerfully  contribute  to  a  con- 
siderable assessment,  with  the  added  advantage  of  diminishing 
the  competencias  which  caused  so  much  trouble  and  loss  of  time.^ 
Such  a  proposal  affords  the  measure  of  the  wrongs  inflicted  on 
society  by  those  who  profited  by  their  exemption  from  the 
secular  courts,  for  even  the  more  limited  privileges  of  the  Cas- 
tihan  familiars  rendered  the  position  one  to  be  eagerly  sought, 
in  spite  of  the  considerable  cost  of  proving  the  condition  precedent 
of  limpieza,  or  purity  of  blood.  These  evils  were  vastly  aggravated 
by  the  fact,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  that  the  tribunals  never  re- 
garded the  limitation  on  numbers  prescribed  by  the  Concordias, 
but  filled  the  land  with  these  privileged  persons  who,  for  the  most 
part,  turned  to  the  best  account  the  protection  of  the  Holy  Office. 

That  Aragon  should  be  permanently  restive  under  this  adverse 
discrimination  was  inevitable  and  the  time  had  come  when  it 
could  dictate  in  place  of  supplicating.  Since  the  Cortes  of  1626 
twenty  years  elapsed  before  Philip  found  himself  constrained  to 
assemble  them  again.  The  situation  was  desperate;  the  Catalan 
rebellion  bade  fair  to  end  in  the  permanent  alienation  of  the 
Principality  to  France,  and  it  was  not  wise  to  impose  too  severe 
a  strain  on  the  loyalty  of  Aragon,  when  the  Cortes  met  Septem- 
ber 20,  1645,  for  a  session  of  fifteen  months.  In  preparation  for 
the  struggle,  the  Suprema  presented  to  the  king,  September  30th, 
an  elaborately  argued  memorial  in  which  it  told  him  that  the 
calamities  of  the  war  should  lead  him  to  greater  zeal  in  fortifying 
the  Inquisition  with  new  graces  and  privileges,  so  as  to  win  the 
favor  of  God,  whose  cause  they  served  and  from  whom  alone  was 
relief  to  be  expected.  It  was  therefore  asked  that  whatever 
demands  on  the  subject  should  be  presented  should  be  reserved 
for  discussion  with  the  inquisitor-general  and  Suprema.'    Philip 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Leg.  621,  fol.  90. 
'  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528. 


Chap.  IV]  ABAGON  459 

doubtless  made  the  desired  promise,  but  the  Aragonese  had  too 
often  found  their  hopes  frustrated  in  this  manner  to  submit  to 
it  again  under  existing  circumstances. 

The  Cortes  lost  no  time  in  presenting  their  petition  on  the  sub- 
ject, which  asked  for  racUcal  reform  in  all  the  Aragonese  kingdoms. 
The  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition  was  to  be  confined  to  cases  of 
faith  and  to  civil  and  criminal  actions  between  its  officials.  In 
certain  mixed  cases,  such  as  bigamy,  unnatural  crime,  sorcery, 
solicitation  and  censorship  it  should  have  jurisdiction  cumula- 
tive with  the  appropriate  secular  and  spiritual  courts.  A  number 
of  minor  points  were  added,  including  a  demand  that  all  inquis- 
itors and  officials  should  be  natives  and  it  was  significantly  stated 
that  the  petition  was  presented  thus  early  in  order  that  it  might 
be  granted,  so  that  the  Cortes  could  proceed  more  heartily  with 
the  servicio  that  was  asked  for.  This  paper  was  submitted  to 
the  Suprema  which  replied  in  a  long  consulta,  March  31,  1646, 
arguing  that  the  Inquisition  had  been  introduced  into  Aragon 
without  law  and  was  independent  of  all  law.  It  proceeded  to 
demonstrate,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  345),  that  its  temporal 
jurisdiction  was  inalienable  and  that  the  Concordias  were  com- 
pacts which  could  not  be  modified  without  its  consent.  The 
officials  were  so  abhorred  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  them 
to  perform  their  duties  if  they  were  not  thus  protected.  If  the 
Cortes  should  stubbornly  insist,  the  king  was  urged,  like  Charles 
V  in  1518,  to  remember  his  soul  and  his  conscience,  and  to  prefer 
the  loss  of  part  of  his  dominions  rather  than  consent  to  anything 
contrary  to  the  honor  of  God  and  the  authority  of  the  Inquisition.^ 

The  policy  of  the  Suprema  was  to  carry  the  war  into  Africa, 
and  it  followed  this  manifesto  with  another  demanding  that  the 
court  of  the  Justicia  should  be  prohibited  from  issuing  firmas  and 
manifestaciones  in  cases  concerning  the  Inquisition.  Both  sides 
asked  for  more  than  they  expected  to  get  and,  when  the  Cortes 
answered  these  papers,  June  20th,  after  numerous  citations  to 
disprove  the  arguments  of  the  Suprema  and  an  exposition  of  the 
hardships  caused  by  the  existing  system,  they  opened  the  way  to 
a  compromise  by  pointing  out  that  Castile  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years  had  enjoyed  what  Aragon  had  vainly  prayed  for,  and  con- 
cluded by  suggesting  that  the  best  settlement  would  be  to  confer 
on  Aragon  the  Concordia  of  Castile  which  had  been  thoroughly 


*  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528. 


460  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

discussed  by  lawyers  and  its  practical  working  determined  and 
understood/ 

Finally  the  demands  of  the  Cortes  were  formulated  in  a  series 
of  twenty-seven  articles,  which  were  prudently  declared  to  be 
law,  whether  confirmed  or  not  by  the  inquisitor-general.  Of  these 
the  essential  ones  deprived  familiars  of  the  active  and  passive 
fuero  in  civil  suits,  of  the  active  in  criminal  cases,  and  excepted 
certain  specified  crimes  in  the  passive.  Servants  of  salaried 
officials  were  put  on  the  same  footing  in  criminal  matters.  The 
number  of  both  familiars  and  salaried  officials  was  limited  to  four 
hundred  and  fifty  in  the  whole  kingdom  and  those  who  held  office 
were  deprived  of  the  fuero  for  official  malfeasance ;  in  cases  not  of 
faith  the  use  of  torture  was  prohibited  as  well  as  confinement  in 
the  secret  prison;  all  cases,  whether  civil  or  criminal,  were  to  be 
concluded  within  two  years;  fraudulent  ahenation  of  property  to 
officials,  so  as  to  place  it  under  the  fuero,  was  declared  invalid; 
all  persons  or  bodies,  in  case  of  violation  of  these  provisions,  had 
the  right  to  avail  themselves  of  all  remecUes  known  to  the  laws  of 
the  land,  while  to  the  tribunal  was  reserved  the  power  to  employ 
censures  and  other  legal  processes.  A  concession  was  made  by 
granting  to  both  officials  and  familiars  the  right  of  asylum  in 
their  houses,  relief  from  billeting,  exemption  from  arrest  for  debt, 
capacity  to  hold  office  and  freedom  from  tolls,  ferriages,  etc.  In 
return  for  this  the  Cortes  were  Hberal  with  the  servicio,  agreeing 
to  keep  in  the  field  two  thousand  foot  and  five  hundred  horse  for 
four  years,  paying  them  two  reales  a  day,  while  the  king  should 
find  them  in  food,  arms  and  horses.^ 

In  these  conditions  there  was  nothing  affecting  the  faith  or 
restricting  the  persecution  of  heresy;  nothing  save  a  prudent 
regard  for  the  peace  and  protection  of  society  from  the  intolerable 
burden  of  gangs  of  virtual  bandits  clothed  in  inviolability.  Yet 
PhiUp  resisted  to  the  last  extremity  these  reasonable  concessions, 
which  merely  placed  Aragon  on  the  same  footing  as  Castile. 
We  are  told  that  he  declared  that  he  cherished  the  Inquisition  as 
the  apple  of  his  eye  and  that  he  exhausted  every  means  to  pre- 
serve its  privileges.  He  offered  to  concede  everything  else  that 
was  asked;  he  endeavored  to  win  the  Aragonese  by  bribing  them 
with  royal  grants  and  graces,  of  which  three  hundred  and  sixty 
were  published  in  a  single  day,  with  the  names  of  the  recipients, 

»  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Mm,  122. 

^  Fueros  y  Actos  de  Corte  en  1645  y  1646,  pp.  1-2,  11-12  (Zaragoza,  1647). 


Chap.  IV]  ARAGON  461 

but  nothing  could  overcome  the  hatred  felt  for  the  Holy  Office 
and  the  brazos  were  immovable.  In  his  perplexity  he  appealed 
to  his  usual  counsellor,  the  mystic  Sor  Maria  de  Agreda,  affirming 
his  determination  to  uphold  the  Inquisition,  and  he  must  have 
been  surprised  when  that  clear-sighted  woman  advised  him  to 
compromise,  for  a  quarrel  with  Aragon  might  turn  it  to  the  side 
of  Catalonia  and  lead  to  the  permanent  disruption  of  the  mon- 
archy. Even  this  failed  to  move  him.  He  endeavored  to  depart 
for  Madrid,  but  deputation  after  deputation  was  sent  to  the  con- 
vent of  Santa  Engracia  where  he  was  lodged,  insisting  on  his  con- 
firmation of  the  articles  and  detaining  him  for  two  or  three  days 
while  his  coach  stood  ready  at  the  gate,  until  at  last  he  yielded, 
seeing  that  there  was  no  alternative.  The  WTiter  who  records 
this  adds  that  the  people  rejoiced  and  since  then  in  Aragon, 
where  the  Inquisition  had  stood  higher  than  elsewhere,  for  an 
inquisitor  was  regarded  with  more  reverence  than  an  archbishop 
or  a  viceroy,  it  has  so  fallen  in  estimation  that  some  say  that 
all  is  over  with  it.  The  officials  and  familiars  feel  this  every  day 
in  the  withdrawal  of  their  privileges  and  exemptions,  and  it  is 
palpable  that  in  all  that  does  not  concern  the  faith,  the  ancient 
powers  of  the  tribunal  of  Aragon  are  prostrated.^ 

It  was  not  long  before  the  sullen  yielding  of  the  Inquisition  to 
the  changed  situation  was  manifested  in  a  case  which  cUd  not 
tend  to  restore  it  to  reverence.  Inquisitor  Lazaeta  was  involved 
in  an  intrigue  with  a  married  woman  of  San  Anton,  whose  hus- 
band, a  Catalan  named  Miguel  Choved,  grew  suspicious  and  pre- 
tended to  take  a  journey.  Lazaeta  fell  into  the  trap.  October 
27,  1647,  he  went  to  the  house  at  nightfall,  leaving  his  coach  in 
hiding  behind  the  shambles;  the  coachman  waited  for  him  in 
vain,  for  the  injured  husband  had  entered  by  a  side-door  and 
given  him  a  sword-thrust  of  which  he  died  in  the  street,  while 
stumbhng  forward  in  search  of  his  coach.  The  woman  escaped 
and  Choved  disappeared,  but  some  demonstration  was  necessary 
and  the  tribunal  arrested  one  Francisco  Arnal  as  an  accessory. 
The  court  of  the  Justicia  issued  a  manifestacion  in  his  favor, 
w^hen  the  inquisitors  complained  of  the  interference  with  their 
functions  of  such  orders  and  that  the  tribunal  could  not  be  main- 
tained if  they  were  to  be  banished  and  their  temporalities  be 
seized  whenever  they  judged  that  a  case  was  not  comprehended 

>  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  122  (see  Appendix).— Joaquin  Sanchez  de 
Toca,  Felipe  IV  y  Sor  Maria  de  Agreda,  p.  282  (Madrid,  1887). 


462  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

within  the  fueros.  To  this  the  Council  of  Aragon  repUed  that  the 
court  of  the  Justicia  always  acted  with  great  caution  and  that,  in 
the  present  case,  Arnal  had  renounced  the  manifestacion  and  had 
been  returned  to  the  tribunal,  which  had  found  him  innocent  and 
had  discharged  him.  The  Suprema  insisted  that  it  would  be 
better  to  remove  the  tribunal  from  Aragon  than  to  have  it  sub- 
jected to  such  insults,  to  which  the  Council  rejoined  that  there 
was  no  admission  of  firmas  and  manifestaciones  except  in  matters 
not  of  faith;  if  the  inquisitors  would  keep  within  their  just  limits, 
such  troubles  would  be  avoided,  while,  if  they  exceeded  them, 
the  kingdom  must  avail  itself  of  the  remedies  provided  by  the 
laws.^  Now  in  this  case  the  tribunal  was  strictly  within  its  rights 
under  the  Concordia  and  its  abstention  from  excommunication 
and  interdict  indicates  how  thoroughly  it  was  humbled. 

Another  grievance  of  the  Incpiisition  shows  how  completely 
the  tables  were  turned.  September  23,  1648,  the  Suprema  repre- 
sented in  a  consulta  that  the  tribunal  had  been  notified  to  reduce 
the  number  of  its  officials  and  familiars  to  the  prescribed  four 
hundred  and  fifty,  which  had  not  been  done  under  the  plea  that 
the  number  was  insufficient,  that  the  Concordia  did  not  order 
the  dismissal  of  the  overplus  and  that  the  incumbents  could  not 
be  deprived  of  their  rights.  Still  there  was  little  doubt  that  per- 
sistent refusal  would  lead  the  Diputados  to  obtain  a  firma  com- 
pelling a  selection  and  until  this  was  done  no  familiar  would  be 
allowed  to  enjoy  their  privileges — in  fact  a  number  of  towns  had 
already  assumed  this  position  and  others  were  taking  steps  to 
obtain  firmas.  The  Suprema  endeavored  to  show  the  illegality 
of  this  on  the  ground  that  the  Concordia  of  1646  was  not  valid  in 
the  absence  of  confirmation  by  the  inquisitor-general.  Philip 
submitted  this  to  the  Council  of  Aragon  and  merely  transmitted 
its  answer,  in  non-committal  fashion,  to  the  Suprema  for  its 
information.  This  took  the  ground  that  only  the  secular  and 
royal  jurisdiction  was  concerned;  the  king  had  confirmed  the 
laws  which  provided  that  the  acquiescence  of  the  inquisitor- 
general  was  unnecessary;  if  parties  were  aggrieved  they  could 
apply  to  the  court  of  the  Justicia.^ 

Under  these  conditions,  the  laws  of  1646,  by  restricting  the 


^  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528. — Llorente  tells  us  (Hist,  crit., 
Cap.  xxxviii,  Art.  1,  n.  27)  that  Choved  (or  Gobea)  was  caught  and  tried  but 
escaped  the  gallows  by  steadfast  denial  under  repeated  torture. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  37,  fol.  379. 


Chap.  IV]  ABAGON  463 

tribunal  to  its  proper  functions,  were  a  severe  blow  to  its  pre- 
dominance, diminishing  the  terror  which  it  inspired  and  affecting 
in  some  degree  its  finances.  The  continual  suits  brought  before 
it  had  afforded  a  rich  harvest  of  fees  for  its  oflacials  and  the  fines 
imposed  had  been  a  resource  to  its  treasury.  All  this  fell  off 
greatly  and,  in  1649,  the  Suprema  reminded  Philip  that,  in  1646, 
it  had  predicted  this  result  and  he  had  promised  indemnification 
by  a  fixed  income  to  be  paid  by  Aragon  or  by  the  royal  treasury; 
although  it  did  not  regard  the  laws  as  binding  in  the  absence  of 
confirmation  by  the  inquisitor-general,  and  had  resisted  their 
execution  in  every  way,  still  they  were  executed  and  the  officials 
were  suffering  keenly  from  their  diminished  fees,  wherefore  it 
asked  the  king  to  grant  to  the  four  notaries  and  messengers  eight 
hundred  ducats  a  year  out  of  the  fund  for  the  Catalan  refugees. 
This  demand,  and  the  impudent  assertion  of  the  nulHty  of  the 
laws  which  he  had  approved,  provoked  Philip  into  one  of  his  rare 
assertions  of  kingship.  The  Catalan  fund,  he  rephed,  could  not 
be  touched;  he  would  listen  to  other  suggestions  for  the  rehef  of 
the  incumbents  but  not  of  their  successors ;  he  was  master  of  the 
secular  jurisdiction  granted  to  the  Inquisition  for  his  service  and 
could  make  laws  and  abrogate  them  at  his  pleasure.^ 

Philip  had  learned  a  lesson  and  the  laws  of  1646  were  duly 
executed.  When,  in  1677,  there  was  another  convocation  of  the 
Cortes  of  Aragon,  the  Suprema,  in  a  supphant  tone  contrasting 
strongly  with  its  former  arrogance,  begged  Carlos  II  to  influence 
them  to  condescend  to  a  modification.  It  gave  a  most  dolorous 
account  of  the  condition  of  the  Saragossa  tribunal  resulting  from 
that  legislation.  It  forebore  to  discuss  whether  the  officials  had 
given  just  cause  of  complaint,  but  the  total  destruction  of  the 
Inquisition  was  curing  one  malady  by  introducing  a  worse  one, 
and  the  Inquisition  of  Aragon  had  been  destroyed.  The  number 
of  officials  was  reduced  below  that  at  the  time  of  its  foundation, 
and  its  poverty  was  so  great  that  wages  were  unpaid  and  the 
tribunal  would  probably  have  to  be  abandoned.  The  treasurer 
was  compelled  to  collect  its  income  and  debts  through  the  court 
of  the  Justicia,  where  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  carry  on  so 
many  suits,  so  that  only  those  paid  whose  consciences  compelled 
them.  The  reduction  of  the  officials  impeded  its  usefulness; 
possibly  there  were  fewer  culprits  but  certainly  there  were  fewer 
convictions— less  in  Aragon  than  in  the  other  provinces— and  a 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  38,  fol.  22. 


464  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

single  one  who  escaped  correction  was  a  matter  of  greater  conse- 
quence to  God  than  the  enjoyment  of  the  fuero  by  five  hundred 
persons.  It  was  impossible  to  fill  the  allotted  number  of  f  amiUars, 
for  the  fuero  in  criminal  matters  left  to  them  was  rather  a  dis- 
advantage, for  they  died  in  prison  owing  to  the  interminable 
delays  in  settling  the  numerous  competencias,  while  other  defend- 
ants were  released  on  bail.  At  the  same  time  the  deprivation  of 
the  active  fuero  exposed  them  to  the  effects  of  the  general  hatred 
felt  for  them.  It  was  inconceivable  that,  in  so  pious  a  nation,  this 
hatred  could  be  caused  by  their  functions,  but  its  existence  was 
a  matter  of  experience  and,  in  the  absence  of  protection,  the  risks 
to  which  it  exposed  them  prevented  men  from  seeking  the  posi- 
tion. The  Inquisition  did  not  desire  jurisdiction,  but  it  could 
not  exist  without  revenue  and  officials,  and  it  therefore  prayed 
the  king  that  proper  measures  of  relief  be  discussed  in  the  Cortes, 
or  a  junta  could  be  formed  from  both  parties  and  a  new  Con- 
cordia be  framed.  Even  allowing  for  customary  exaggeration, 
this  paper  shows  how  greatly  the  Inquisition  had  outgrown  the 
functions  for  which  it  had  been  imposed  upon  the  people. 

The  concessions  asked  for  were  singularly  moderate— that  the 
treasurer  should  not  be  required  to  make  collections  through 
the  court  of  the  Justicia,  that  more  familiars  be  allowed — though 
it  had  just  been  said  that  they  could  not  be  had— that  they  be 
admitted  to  bail  during  competencias,  and  a  timid  suggestion 
respecting  the  firma  and  manifestacion.  The  time,  however,  was 
not  propitious  even  for  demands  so  modest.  The  youthful  Carlos 
II  had  just  relegated  his  mother  to  a  convent  and  her  favorite 
Valenzuela  to  the  Phihppines;  all  power  was  in  the  hands  of  Don 
Juan  of  Austria,  who  held  the  inquisitor-general  Valladares  to 
be  his  personal  enemy.  The  appeal  of  the  Suprema  was  received 
unsympathetically  and  it  seems  to  have  gained  nothing.  That  the 
Aragonese  were  content  with  the  situation  appears  from  the  fact 
that  the  only  complaint  made  by  the  Cortes  regarded  the  non- 
observance  of  a  law  of  1646  prescribing  the  number  of  natives 
to  be  employed  by  the  tribunal,  and  this  arose  merely  from 
greed  of  office,  for  they  suggested  that,  for  each  foreigner  appointed 
in  Aragon,  an  Aragonese  should  have  a  corresponding  berth  in  a 
tribunal  elsewhere.^ 

The  legislation  of  1646  remained  a  finahty.  As  late  as  1741 
the  Suprema  remonstrated  against  the  Audiencia  of  Saragossa 

1  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Legajo  528. 


Chap.  IV]  CATALONIA  4g5 

for  impeding  the  jurisdiction  of  the  tribunal  by  employing  the 
firma,  which,  with  customary  disingenuousness,  it  characterized 
as  an  innovation/ 

Catalonia  was  as  intractable  as  Aragon,  while  its  more  pro- 
nounced spirit  of  independence  rendered  it  particularly  trouble- 
some. Although  it  lacked  the  institution  of  the  Justicia,  it  had 
a  somewhat  imperfect  substitute  in  the  Banch  Reyal,  or  King's 
Bench,  which  was  used  in  the  appeals  por  via  de  fuerza  from  the 
spiritual  courts.  The  Audiencia  summoned  the  ecclesiastical 
judge  before  it  and  his  disregard  of  the  summons  was  followed 
by  a  decree  of  banishment  and  seizure  of  temporalities.  The 
inquisitors  denied  their  Hability  to  this,  the  Catalans  asserted  it, 
and  the  endeavor  to  enforce  it  was  a  serious  cause  of  cjuarrel. 
It  was  not  without  influence,  for  a  memorial,  in  1632,  from  the 
inquisitors  complains  that  the  Duke  of  Maqueda,  when  viceroy 
in  1592,  had  employed  it  against  the  tribunal,  since  when  the 
veneration  felt  for  the  latter  had  greatly  dechned,  and  a  com- 
plaint of  the  Catalan  authorities  to  Carlos  II,  in  1695,  describes 
it  as  the  sole  refuge  and  protection  of  the  people  from  the  oppres- 
sion of  the  inquisitors  and  ecclesiastical  judges.^ 

We  have  already  seen  the  Concordia  reached  in  1512,  abolish- 
ing most  of  the  then  existing  abuses;  how  it  was  sworn  to  by 
king,  inquisitor-general  and  inquisitors,  and  how  a  similar  oath 
was  to  be  taken  by  all  future  inquisitors;  how  Leo  X  obligingly 
released  them  all  from  their  oaths;  how  Ferdinand,  just  before 
his  death,  accepted  the  conditions,  in  December,  1515,  and  the 
complaisant  pontiff,  in  the  bull  Pastoralis  officii,  confirmed  them, 
and  how  Barcelona,  in  return,  bound  itself  to  a  yearly  subven- 
tion of  six  hundred  ducats.  It  is  well  to  recall  these  facts  in  view 
of  the  bare-faced  denials  with  which  subsequently  the  Catalan 
complaints  of  non-observance  were  persistently  met.  "  Even 
while  the  papal  dispensation  from  the  oaths  was  still  in  force, 
the  Instructions  issued  by  Inquisitor-general  Mercader,  in  1514, 
prescribed  rules  which,  if  observed,  would  have  removed  the 
leading  causes  of  complaint.  Any  official  or  familiar  committing 
a  crime  deserving  of  corporal  punishment  was  to  be  denounced 
to  him,  when  he  would  dismiss  the  culprit  and  punish  the  inquis- 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  27,  fol.  242. 

*  Ibidem,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  15. — Archivo  gfo.  de 
la  C.  de  Aragon,  Leg.  708. 

30 


466  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

itor  who  tolerated  it.  The  civil  suits  of  officials  were  to  be  brought 
in  the  court  of  the  defendant;  if  the  official  was  plaintiff,  all  pro- 
ceedings before  an  inquisitor  were  pronounced  invalid  and  both 
official  and  inquisitor  were  to  be  punished;  even  when  both  par- 
ties to  a  contract  agreed  to  accept  the  forum  of  the  tribunal, 
inquisitors  were  forbidden,  under  pain  of  punishment,  to  enter- 
tain the  case.  Secular  officials  could  arrest  familiars  caught  in 
the  act.  Officials  were  forbidden  to  engage  in  trade,  even  through 
third  parties,  and  were  deprived  of  the  f uero  for  all  matters  thence 
arising,  and  similarly  if  they  purchased  claims  subject  to  suits, 
nor  could  they  employ  other  officials  to  collect  debts  connected 
with  their  private  estates.^  Although  these  Instructions  were  in 
force  for  only  a  year  or  two,  they  have  interest  as  manifesting 
Ferdinand's  purpose  that  the  Holy  Office  should  not  be  dis- 
tracted from  its  legitimate  functions  or  be  used  to  oppress  his 
subjects  or  to  minister  to  private  greed.  He  could,  at  the  same 
time,  believe  that  it  required  special  privileges,  for  it  did  not  as 
yet  inspire  awe  in  so  turbulent  a  population.  In  that  same  year, 
1514,  at  Lerida,  the  inquisitor  Canon  Antist  was  besieged  in  his 
house  and  the  assailants  were  with  difficulty  beaten  off,  after 
which  they  defiantly  walked  the  streets,  uttering  challenges  to 
his  defenders.^ 

A  further  victory  was  gained  by  the  Catalans  at  the  Cortes 
of  Monzon  in  1520,  when,  on  December  28th,  Cardinal  Adrian, 
in  the  most  solemn  manner,  not  only  swore  to  observe  the  articles 
of  1512  but  presented  for  attestation  a  document  from  Queen 
Juana  and  Charles  V,  promising  investigation  and  redress  of 
charges  brought  against  certain  officials,  and  enacting  that,  to 
prevent  such  abuses  for  the  future,  all  offences  disconnected  with 
the  faith,  committed  by  officials,  should  be  tried  by  the  ordinary 
courts,  thus  depriving  them  of  the  much-prized  criminal  passive 
fuero.  This,  too,  Adrian  swore  to  observe  when  the  necessary 
papal  confirmation  should  be  obtained — a  confirmation  which 
the  Inquisition  probably  had  sufficient  influence  to  prevent,  as 
there  appears  to  be  no  further  trace  of  it.^ 

The  articles  of  1512  thus  were  a  compact  in  which  the  Catalans, 
the  king,  the  Inquisition  and  the  pope  all  joined  in  the  most 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  933. 
'  Ibidem,  Lib.  3,  fol.  308,  309;  Lib.  72,  fol.  2. 

^  Pragmaticas  y  altres  Drets  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  ii,  Tit.  viii,  |  3. — Archive  de 
Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  39,  41. 


Chap.  IV]  CATALONIA  467 

solemn  manner,  pledging  all  future  inquisitors  to  swear  to  them. 
For  a  while  this  latter  clause  was  observed.  Fernando  Loazes, 
who  was  inquisitor  of  Barcelona  for  twenty  years  from  about 
1533,  took  the  oath,  but  he  was  promptly  involved  in  a  quarrel 
with  the  magistrates  in  which  Juan  de  Cardona,  Bishop-elect  of 
Barcelona,  was  induced,  as  papal  commissioner,  to  prosecute  him 
for  perjury,  and  after  that  no  inquisitor  took  the  oath.*  In  this 
they  were  wise  for  they  emancipated  themselves  completely  from 
the  Concordia.  The  Cortes  of  1547  complained  of  the  inordinate 
multiplication  of  familiars,  over  the  thirty  allowed  by  it,  and  of 
the  neglect  to  furnish  lists  or  other  means  for  their  identification, 
together  with  other  infractions,  but  Prince  Philip  replied  that  he 
would  consult  the  Suprema  and  would  reach  appropriate  con- 
clusions, which  of  course  ended  the  matter.^  How  completely 
the  provisions  of  the  Concordia  were  ignored  is  manifest  in  1551, 
when  Catalina  Murciana  asked  relief  in  the  veguer's  court  from 
suits  brought  against  her  in  the  Inquisition  by  the  fiscal,  the 
Abbot  of  Besalu,  when  she  was  entitled  to  her  own  court.  On 
refusal  of  redress  by  the  inquisitor,  Juan  Arias,  a  monitorio  was 
obtained  from  the  Banch  Reyal,  whereupon  Arias  threw  the 
officials  of  the  veguer's  court  into  prison  and  kept  them  there. 
The  matter  was  carried  up  to  the  Royal  Councils  with  the  result 
that  the  judges  of  the  Audiencia  were  ordered  to  erase  all  record 
of  the  affair  from  their  dockets  and  appear  in  person  before  the 
inquisitor  to  report  to  him  that  it  was  duly  expunged.^ 

Thus  supported  by  the  monarch,  the  tribunal  exercised  its 
powers  at  discretion  without  regard  to  compacts.  The  report, 
in  1561,  by  Inquisitor  Caspar  Cervantes  of  the  visitation  which 
he  had  just  completed,  describes  the  disorders  which  had  long 
reigned  in  all  departments.  The  last  visitation  had  been  made 
in  1550  and  its  recommendations  had  been  wholly  ignored.  It 
had  ordered  a  reduction  in  the  number  of  familiars  and  that  lists 
of  them  be  sent  to  the  Suprema,  which  had  not  been  done;  in 
fact  the  tribunal  itself  had  kept  no  correct  register;  it  had  a  hun- 
dred and  eight  names  recorded  for  Barcelona,  but  when  they 
were  ordered  to  present  their  papers  under  penalty  of  being 
dropped,  only  sixty-eight  of  these  came  forward,  while  there  were 
thirty-one  who  were  not  registered.    The  number,  he  said,  should 

>  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  5. 
»  Constitutions  de  Cathalunya  superfluas,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  iv  (Barcelona,  1589) 
'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  930,  fol.  49.— Portocarrero,  §  78. 


468  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

be  reduced  and  more  care  be  exercised  in  the  selection;  many  of 
the  laymen  were  bandits  and  the  clerics  were  men  of  bad  char- 
acter, who  sought  the  office  to  obtain  exemption  from  their  pre- 
lates. All  this  resulted  in  so  much  secular  business  that  it  seemed 
to  be  the  real  duty  of  the  tribunal  and  that  nothing  else  was 
attended  to — in  fact  there  was  so  little  to  do  in  matters  of  faith 
that  the  inquisitors  could  well  be  spared  from  Barcelona  and 
employ  themselves  in  visiting  their  district.  All  this  is  expli- 
cable by  the  exorbitance  of  the  fees  charged,  about  which  there 
was  much  complaint.  There  was  no  authorized  fee-bill.  In  civil 
cases  the  inquisitors  charged  from  two  and  a  half  to  ten  per  cent, 
on  the  amount  at  issue,  depending  on  its  magnitude,  with  a 
maximum  of  seventy-five  libras;  in  criminal  cases  they  received 
nothing  but  had  the  opportunity  of  inflicting  fines.  The  officials 
had  fees  for  every  act,  drawing  and  copying  papers,  serving 
notices,  summoning  witnesses,  levying  executions,  etc.,  etc.,  and 
there  was  a  standing  quarrel  between  the  notaries  of  the  three 
departments — of  the  secreto,  or  tribunal  of  faith,  of  sequestra- 
tions and  of  the  juzgado,  or  court  of  confiscations — as  to  which 
should  have  the  business.^ 

That  the  Cortes  of  Monzon,  in  1563-4,  should  protest  ener- 
getically against  these  abuses  was  natural.  Indeed,  a  Catalan 
named  Caspar  Mercader  carried  the  protest  so  far  as  to  say, 
among  other  odious  things,  that  the  Inquisition  had  been  intro- 
duced only  for  a  limited  time  which  had  expired  and  that  it 
should  be  abolished,  for  which  the  tribunal  arrested,  tried  and 
punished  him.^  In  spite  of  this  interference  with  the  freedom 
of  debate,  the  general  disafi"ection,  as  we  have  seen,  led  to  the 
visitation  of  de  Soto  Salazar.  In  Barcelona  he  found  that 
not  the  slightest  attention  had  been  paid  to  the  orders  of  the 
Suprema  based  on  the  report  of  Cervantes.  Advocates,  familiars 
and  commissioners  continued  to  be  appointed  in  profusion,  with- 
out investigation  as  to  fitness.  When  an  inquisitor  visited  his 
district  he  carried  with  him  blank  commissions  which  he  dis- 
tributed at  will.  All  these,  with  their  families,  were  protected 
and  defended  by  the  tribunal  in  civil  and  criminal  cases,  nor 
was  this  all,  for  it  would  seem  that  any  one  who  claimed  the 
fuero,  whether  he  was  entitled  to  it  or  not,  was  admitted  and, 
in  the  absence  of  lists  filed  with  the  magistrates,  the  latter  had 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  2. 
'  Ibidem,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  9. 


Chap.  IV]  CATALONIA  459 

no  means  of  resisting  the  arrogant  and  peremptory  demand  of 
the  tribunal  to  surrender  cases.  Instances  were  given  which 
showed  that  the  tribunal  was  a  court  where  justice — or  rather 
injustice — was  bought  and  sold  and  there  had  been  no  reform 
in  the  excessive  fees  which  had  scandalized  Cervantes.^ 

That  it  should  be  hated  was  inevitable.  In  1566,  Govilla, 
Bishop  of  Elna,  defending  himself  for  acts  committed  when  he 
was  inquisitor  of  Barcelona,  declared  that  the  Inquisition  was 
even  more  odious  in  Catalonia  than  elsewhere.^  This  hatred 
sometimes  expressed  itself  more  forcibly  than  by  complaints. 
In  1567,  the  evocation  of  a  case,  which  the  local  authorities 
claimed  as  their  own,  led  to  the  fiercest  excitement  which  the 
viceroy  fruitlessly  sought  to  allay  and  appealed  to  Philip  II  for 
his  immediate  interposition.  Disregarding  the  inviolable  secrecy 
of  the  Inquisition,  the  Diputados,  with  the  veguer,  forced  their 
way  into  the  palace,  penetrated  to  the  audience-chamber  where 
the  inquisitors  were  trying  a  case,  and  inventoried  and  seques- 
trated everything,  even  to  the  private  property  of  the  Inquisitor 
Padilla  in  his  apartments — apparently  a  seizure  of  temporalities 
under  an  order  of  the  Banch  Reyal.  Even  more  flagrant  was  the 
insult  committed  when  the  messenger  and  the  secretary  were 
conveying  from  Perpignan  to  Barcelona  two  government  officials 
accused  of  impeding  the  Inquisition  and  also  a  prisoner  under  a 
charge  of  heresy.  Near  Gerona,  one  of  the  Diputados,  at  the 
head  of  an  armed  band,  seized  the  whole  party  and  carried  them 
back  to  Perpignan,  where  they  were  paraded  through  the  streets 
with  blare  of  trumpets,  as  though  criminals  on  the  way  to  execu- 
tion, and  were  then  cast  into  prison,  where  they  lay  until  dis- 
charged without  accusation.  This  was  a  most  serious  assault  on 
the  dignity  of  the  Holy  Office  and  even  worse  was  permitting 
the  escape  of  the  heretic,  but  it  was  obliged  to  submit  without 
vindicating  its  authority.^ 

Such  being  the  temper  of  the  Catalans  and  such  the  provoca- 
tion to  meet  lawlessness  with  lawlessness,  it  is  not  surprising 
that,  when  the  Concordia  of  1568  was  prepared  for  the  three 
kingdoms,  Catalonia  would  have  none  of  it.  When,  in  September, 
it  was  submitted  to  the  Diputados,  they  were  incensed  and 
proposed  to  send  envoys  to  the  king  to  remonstrate  against  it. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  20. 
'  Ibidem,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  74. 
»  Ibidem,  fol.  20,  81. 


470  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

There  was  a  universal  outcry  that  it  was  contrary  to  the  consti- 
tution and  privileges  of  the  land;  they  would  observe  it  in  so  far 
as  it  was  in  their  favor,  but  as  to  the  rest  they  were  ready  to  lose 
life,  property  and  children  rather  than  to  submit  to  it.  In  Feb- 
ruary, 1569,  the  inquisitors  wrote  that  the  people  would  not  be 
content  until  they  had  driven  the  Inquisition  from  the  land;  as 
for  themselves  they  proposed  to  go  on  as  they  had  previously 
done  until  the  Concordia  should  be  accepted,  to  which  the 
Suprema  cordially  assented.^ 

This  attitude  of  mutual  defiance  was  not  conducive  to  peace. 
In  1570,  there  arose  a  quarrel  so  bitter  that  the  Diputados 
invoked  the  protection  and  interposition  of  Pius  V,  and  he  urged 
Philip  II  to  come  to  some  understanding  with  them,  in  view  of 
possible  serious  consequences.  PhiUp  took  the  position  that  they 
were  so  excited  and  so  obstinate  that  any  concessions  would  lead 
only  to  further  demands,  but  he  asked  the  pope  to  dismiss  the 
envoys,  referring  them  to  him  with  recommendation  for  favor- 
able consideration,  so  that  anything  that  he  might  yield  would 
be  to  the  Holy  See  and  not  to  recalcitrant  subjects.  The  situa- 
tion was  critical;  the  rebelHon  of  Granada  was  exhausting  his 
resources,  there  was  acute  apprehension  of  attack  by  a  Turkish 
fleet  and  the  Catalans  were  soon  afterwards  called  upon  to  con- 
tribute to  the  defence  of  the  coasts,  but  if  any  concessions  were 
enforced  on  the  Inquisition  they  have  left  no  traces.  In  fact,  the 
Venetian  envoy,  Leonardo  Donato,  in  his  relation  of  1573,  states 
that,  after  the  Catalans  had  spent  a  hundred  thousand  ducats  in 
these  efforts,  the  Inquisition  imprisoned  those  who  had  been 
most  active  in  the  matter  and  that  they  subsequently  refused  to 
leave  the  prison  without  a  formal  declaration  that  they  had  not 
been  arrested  for  heresy.^  Dissension  naturally  continued.  In 
1572  we  hear  of  a  demand  from  the  Diputados  that  the  inquisitors 
should  show  them  their  commissions  and  take  an  oath  to  obey 
the  constitution  of  Catalonia,  because  they  held  rents  on  the 
Diputacion;  the  inquisitors  acceded  to  the  first  of  these  and  were 
rebuked  by  the  Suprema  because  it  was  a  demand  that  had  been 
persistently  refused  before  and  they  must  not  do  it  again.  Then, 
in  1574,  there  came  a  complaint  from  all  the  cities  that  familiars 


•  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  65,  fol.  184. 

'  Valladares,  Semanario  enidito,  XXVIII,  219. — Salgado  de  Somoza,  de  Reten- 
tione  BuUanim,  P.  II,  cap.  xxxiii,  n.  137-8. — Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  VI, 
p.  367. 


Chap.  IV]  CATALONIA  471 

refused  obedience  to  the  local  laws  respecting  prices,  pasturage 
and  other  matters  as  required  under  the  Concordia,  to  which  the 
Suprema  superciliously  repHed  by  instructing  the  inquisitors 
that,  as  the  people  had  rejected  the  Concordia,  they  need  not 
observe  it/  Then,  in  1585,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  416)  the  Cortes 
obtained  an  advantage  in  excluding  familiars  and  officials  from 
public  offices. 

In  this  spirit  of  undisguised  hostility  both  sides  were  aligned 
for  a  decisive  struggle  in  the  Cortes  of  1599,  under  the  new 
royalty  of  the  youthful  Philip  III.  As  the  Catalan  efforts  failed 
and  the  Inquisition  was  left  in  possession  of  its  usurped  powers, 
the  details  of  the  contest  have  no  interest  except  as  an  exhibition 
of  shameless  duplicity,  by  which  the  king  tricked  his  vassals. 
They  hoped  to  win  favor  by  a  subsidio  of  a  million  Hbras  to  the 
king  and  a  hundred  thousand  to  his  bride,  besides  shrewdly 
granting  ten  thousand  to  the  Marquis  of  Denia  (soon  to  become 
Duke  of  Lerma)  and  six  thousand  to  the  Vice-chancellor  of 
Aragon,^  but  they  reaped  nothing  but  deceit.  Long  discussions 
resulted  in  a  series  of  articles,  divided  into  two  categories,  to 
one  of  which  Philip  gave  unquahfied  assent  and  to  the  other  his 
assent  as  far  as  concerned  himself,  with  a  promise  to  procure 
that  of  the  inquisitor-general  and  pope.  It  was  proposed  to 
withhold  the  pension  of  six  hundred  hbras  granted  in  1520,  if 
the  papal  confirmation  were  not  procured  within  a  year,  but 
Philip  declared  that  no  such  guarantee  was  necessary,  for  the 
letters  which  he  had  ordered  to  be  written  to  the  pope  were  so 
strong  that  no  influence  could  counteract  them.  His  despatches 
to  his  ambassador  were  sent  through  the  Diputados  in  order  to 
satisfy  them,  but  they  assuredly  were  not  allowed  to  see  others 
which  instructed  the  ambassador  to  be  circumspect  in  urging 
the  matter.  He  also  sent  word  to  the  inquisitor-general  that  the 
delivery  of  these  despatches  had  been  delayed  in  order  to  give 
him  time  to  express  his  views.  The  Suprema,  in  appealing  to 
Clement  VIII  to  withhold  confirmation,  did  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  Philip  had  endeavored  to  escape  under  cover  of  the  inquis- 
itor-general and  pope  and  had  finally  signed  only  in  so  far  as 
concerned  himself.  Indeed,  in  a  subsequent  official  paper,  it  was 
unblushingly  asserted  that  he  had  done  so  only  to  get  rid  of  the 
Catalans.     Under  these  influences  it  is  needless  to  say  that  the 

>  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  82,  fol.  52;  Lib.  65,  fol.  184. 
*  Cabrera,  Relaciones,  p.  31. 


472  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

confirmation  never  came  and  the  subsidio  was  the  only  practical 
result  of  the  labors  of  the  Cortes/ 

One  of  the  articles  required  the  execution  of  the  Concordia  of 
1520,  which  embraced  that  of  1512,  the  fulfilment  of  which  the 
Catalans  had  never  ceased  to  demand,  and  the  manner  in  which 
these  solemn  compacts  were  argued  away  is  instructive.  In 
1566,  Govilla,  Bishop  of  Elna,  who  had  been  inquisitor  of  Bar- 
celona, calmly  asserted  that  the  articles  of  1512  had  been  revoked 
as  prejudicial  to  the  free  exercise  of  the  Inquisition.  The  Su- 
prema,  in  urging  Clement  VIII  to  refuse  confirmation  of  the  new 
Concordia  of  1599,  argued  that  the  transactions  of  1512  and  1520 
were  invalid  through  simony,  as  the  Cortes  had  obtained  the  assent 
of  Ferdinand  in  1516  {sic)  and  of  Charles  in  1520  by  conditioning 
subsidies  on  it.  Leo's  bull  of  condemnation  in  1513  was  relied 
upon  and  that  of  confirmation  in  1516  was  dismissed  as  obrepti- 
tious  and  surreptitious.  So  Cardinal  Adrian's  action  in  1520  was 
represented  as  conditional  on  confirmation  by  the  Holy  See,  and 
as  in  no  way  binding  on  the  Inquisition.  So,  in  1632,  the  Bar- 
celona tribunal  drew  up  a  statement  to  be  laid  before  Philip  IV 
by  the  Suprema,  adroitly  mixing  up  the  affairs  of  Aragon  and 
Catalonia  and  telling  him  that  the  Cortes  of  1518  demanded  the 
revival  of  the  articles  of  1512,  that  Charles  refused  to  swear  to 
them,  that  Juan  Prat  interpolated  others,  for  which  he  was 
imprisoned  and  that  the  effort  failed.  In  transmitting  this  the 
Suprema  added  that  the  fact  that  the  Cortes  never  ceased  to 
demand  the  enforcement  of  the  articles  showed  that  they  had 
never  been  observed.^  From  first  to  last  it  was  a  history  of 
deception,  in  which  kings  conspired  with  inquisitors  to  betray 
their  subjects,  without  even  the  excuse  that  the  faith  was  con- 
cerned in  these  details  of  secular  jurisdiction. 

The  Catalan  temper  was  not  soothed  by  the  disappointment 
of  1599,  and  the  refusal  of  redress  prompted  resort  to  forcible 
measures.  There  was  a  contest  in  1608  in  which  the  Banch  Reyal 
uttered  a  sentence  of  banishment  against  the  inquisitors;  a  vessel 
was  made  ready  for  their  deportation  but,  when  the  day  came, 
they  barred  their  door  and  hung  over  it  a  portiere  of  black  velvet 
to  which  was  attached  a  crucifix.    The  city  showed  its  piety  by 


*  Constitutions  fets  en  la  primera  Cort  celebra  als  Cathalans  en  lo  any  de  1599 
(Barcelona,  1603). — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg. 
17,  fol.  2,  5,  28. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  2,  5,  44. 


Chap.  IV]  CATALONIA  473 

placing  candles  in  front  of  the  sacred  emblem  and  the  chapter  sent 
priests  to  pray  before  it.  No  one  ventured  to  disturb  it;  the 
Diputados,  the  chapter  and  the  city  authorities  interposed,  and 
an  accommodation  was  reached.^  A  more  savage  quarrel  arose, 
in  1611,  in  consequence  of  the  veguer  disarming  the  coachman 
of  an  inquisitor.  The  city  authorities  seized  the  temporalities, 
laid  siege  to  the  palace  of  the  Inquisition,  sentenced  the  inquis- 
itors to  banishment  and  proclaimed  it  with  trumpets  through  the 
streets.  This  they  justified  to  the  king  by  telhng  him  that  the 
Holy  OfRce  had  been  instituted  for  a  Umited  term  which  had 
expired,  so  that  it  should  be  abolished  in  Catalonia  and  the  cog- 
nizance of  matters  of  faith  be  restored  to  the  episcopal  courts, 
all  of  which,  we  are  told,  gave  his  majesty  much  concern.^ 

Mutual  detestation  did  not  diminish  and,  when  the  Cortes  of 
1626  were  approaching,  the  inquisitors  anxiously  urged  the  Su- 
prema  to  impress  upon  the  king  that  the  peace  and  preservation 
of  Catalonia  depended  upon  the  maintenance  of  their  temporal 
jurisdiction.  The  deputies,  they  said,  were  holding  daily  juntas 
and  accumulating  stores  of  documents  from  the  archives,  assert- 
ing that  the  time  had  expired  for  which  the  Inquisition  was 
instituted,  and  if  they  accomplish  their  intention  they  will  destroy 
it  wholly.  That  they  were  really  alarmed  is  visible  in  their  ask- 
ing the  Suprema  to  secure  some  compromise.  The  Suprema  duly 
represented  the  danger  to  PhiUp  IV,  who  in  reply  gave  assurance 
that  no  prejudicial  change  would  be  approved,  for  his  unceasing 
desire  was  to  promote  the  exaltation  of  the  Inquisition.  After 
the  Cortes  had  assembled,  the  tribunal  reported,  June  27th,  that 
they  had  drawn  up  a  series  of  articles  effectually  disabling  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition  and  that  they  declare  that  they 
will  not  vote  a  subsidio  until  the  king  shall  have  confirmed  them. 
The  articles  deemed  so  obnoxious  scarce  amounted  to  more  than 
the  Concordia  of  Castile  so  long  in  force,  save  provisions  that  the 
inquisitors  should  be  Catalans  and  should  take  an  oath  to  obey 
the  laws,  and  that  disputes  of  jurisdiction  should  be  settled  by 
a  junta  consisting  of  an  inquisitor,  a  judge  of  the  Audiencia  and 
the  Bishop  of  Barcelona.  Moderate  as  they  were,  Phihp  kept 
his  promise  and  referred  them,  September  23d,  to  Diego  de  Guz- 
man, Archbishop  of  Seville,  acting  head  of  the  Suprema  in  the 


*  Bofarull  y  Broca,  Historia  de  Cataluiia,  VII,  282-3. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  9,  67. 


474  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

vacancy  of  the  inquisitor-generalship,  so  that,  on  the  adjourn- 
ment of  the  Cortes,  the  whole  matter  remained  suspended/ 

An  attempt  at  compromise  was  made  in  what  was  known  as 
the  Concordia  of  Cardinal  Zapata,  arranged,  December  24,  1630, 
between  him  as  inquisitor-general  and  the  Council  of  Aragon. 
This  made  no  substantial  change  in  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inqui- 
sition but  was  directed  chiefly  to  restraining  the  misuse  of  excom- 
munication on  the  one  side  and  the  recourse  to  the  Banch  Reyal 
on  the  other,  by  providing  that  all  disputed  cases  should  be 
settled  by  competencias  conducted  according  to  the  received 
form  of  procedure,  under  penalty  for  a  first  offence  of  five  hun- 
dred ducats  on  the  tribunal  refusing,  and  suspension  from  office 
for  a  second.  This  left  untouched  the  roots  of  trouble  and  accom- 
plished little,  in  consequence,  it  is  said,  of  the  delays  and  evasions 
of  the  inquisitors,  and  frequent  recourse  continued  to  the  Banch 
Reyal,  especially  by  creditors.^ 

The  Cortes  of  1626  had  not  been  dissolved  and  they  met  again 
in  1632  to  conclude  their  unfinished  business.  As  usual,  the 
tribunal  and  the  Suprema  prepared  for  the  struggle  by  earnest 
appeals  to  Philip,  who  responded  with  assurances  of  special  care 
in  all  that  concerned  the  Inquisition.  The  Suprema  had  the 
hardihood  to  tell  him  that  the  Concordia  of  1512,  on  which  the 
Catalans  based  their  claims,  had  never  been  confirmed,  but  it 
was  within  the  truth  when  it  said  that  it  had  never  been  observed. 
It  declared  moreover  that  the  articles  framed  by  the  Cortes  would 
so  prostrate  the  tribunal  that  it  would  have  to  cease  its  functions. 
A  memorial  by  the  secretary  of  the  tribunal,  Miguel  Rodriguez, 
gives  a  deplorable  account  of  the  social  condition  of  Catalonia, 
where  the  barons  and  gentlemen,  the  cities  and  church  founda- 
tions, he  says,  possessed  excessive  powers  and  where  the  bishops 
were  also  barons.  The  hostility  of  the  nobles  and  cities  to  the 
familiars  was  manifested  by  the  daily  murders  committed  on 
them  and  their  children  and  the  burning  of  their  houses.  But 
for  the  protection  of  the  Inquisition  they  would  be  exterminated, 
for  its  jurisdiction  was  the  only  one  respected.  Fathers  endured 
the  murder  of  their  sons,  sons  that  of  their  fathers  and  wives  that 


^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  30,  fol.  474;  Inquisicion  de  Barce- 
lona, Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  18,  67,  87. 

'  Archivo  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Fondos  del  Consejo  de  Aragon,  Leg.  708. 
— Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  21,  fol.  84. — MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ. 
of  Halle,  Yc,  17. 


Chap.  IV]  CATALONIA  475 

of  their  husbands,  for  fear  of  greater  evils  and,  in  addition  to  this, 
was  the  turbulent  temper  of  the  population.  The  viceroys  had 
nominal  power,  but  it  was  exercised  only  on  the  common  folk 
and  not  on  the  powerful,  whom  no  one  dared  to  accuse  or  to  bear 
witness  against.  All  this  busy  preparation  was  superfluous;  the 
Cortes  were  dissolved  without  gaining  their  object.^ 

The  Inquisiton,  as  usual,  had  triumphed,  but  peace  was  impos- 
sible between  the  incompatible  claims  of  rival  jurisdictions.  In 
1637  the  Suprema  complained  of  the  continuous  series  of  troubles 
and  of  the  disregard  of  the  Concordia  of  Zapata.  This  time  the 
offender  was  the  viceroy,  the  powerful  Duke  of  Cardona,  who 
had  imprisoned  a  familiar  for  carrying  a  pistol  and  refusing  to 
surrender  it,  and  had  arrested  two  servants  of  the  receiver,  fining 
one  and  discharging  the  other.  When  the  tribunal  sent  to  him 
a  priest  bearing  a  monitorio  with  excommunication,  he  shut  the 
priest  up,  incomunicado ,  in  a  room  of  the  palace.  Then  he  invited 
to  dinner  the  fiscal  of  the  tribunal  and  shut  him  up  likewise.  He 
ordered  the  inquisitor  to  withdraw  the  excommunication  and,  on 
his  refusal,  he  pronounced  sentence  of  banishment,  posted  four 
hundred  men  around  the  Inquisition  and  made  ready  a  vessel  to 
carry  him  to  Majorca.  The  inquisitor  assembled  five  bishops 
who  declared  that  Cardona  had  incurred  the  excommunication 
of  the  bull  Si  de  protegendis  and  the  inquisitor  so  declared  him, 
though  for  the  avoidance  of  scandal  he  forbore  to  publish  it. 
Under  the  intervention  of  the  bishops  the  sentences  of  banish- 
ment and  excommunication  were  mutually  withdrawn,  and  the 
viceroy  released  the  priest  and  fiscal,  boasting  that  he  had  car- 
ried his  point.  Thereupon  the  Suprema  asked  the  king  to  execute 
on  Cardona  the  penalties  of  the  Concordia  of  Zapata  and  greater 
ones  in  view  of  his  unprecedented  acts  and  also  that  the  ipso 
facto  censures  of  the  canon  Si  quis  suadente  and  the  bull  Si  de 
protegendis  be  published  in  order  that  he  might  seek  the  salvation 
of  his  soul.  To  this  the  weary  king  could  only  reply  by  deprecat- 
ing these  unseemly  quarrels  and  ordering  that  viceroys  should 
not  try  the  cases  of  familiars — Cardona  apparently  having  under- 
taken to  do  this  only  because  there  was  no  other  authority  that 
ventured  to  do  so,  although  the  offence  was  one  which  forfeited 
the  fuero.^    Soon  after  this,  in  1639,  a  still  more  serious  trouble 


^  Parets,  Sucesos  de  Catalufia  (Mem.  hist,  espafiol,  XX,  91). — Archive  de 
Simancas,  Inquisioion  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  15,  18,  19. 
2  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  21,  fol.  83, 


476  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

broke  out  in  Tortosa,  in  which  the  magistrates  were  involved 
and  the  people  rose  against  the  Inquisition,  but  while  this  was  in 
progress  the  Catalan  rebellion  broke  out  and  prudence  counselled 
abstention  from  severe  measures  of  repression.^ 

Whatever  share  the  Inquisition  may  have  had  in  stimulating 
the  disaffection  that  led  to  the  rebelHon,  the  unredressed  griev- 
ances which  so  excited  the  Cortes  nowhere  appear  on  the  surface. 
The  proximate  cause,  as  has  been  stated  above,  was  the  burning  of 
the  churches  of  Montiro  and  Rio  de  Arenas  by  the  Neapolitan 
troops  quartered  on  the  people;  some  consecrated  hosts  were 
found  reduced  to  coals  and  the  peasants,  who  had  suffered  from 
the  outrages  of  the  unpaid  soldiery,  rose  in  arms,  cut  them  off  in 
detail,  styled  themselves  the  Exercit  Christia  and  bore  on  their 
banners  the  Venerable  Sacrament,  with  the  legend  "Senor  jucU- 
cau  vostra  causa"  and  claimed  that  their  object  was  to  protect 
the  people  and  defend  the  Catholic  faith.  In  fact,  the  Inquisition 
was  invited  to  prosecute  the  guilty  authors  of  the  sacrilege  and 
undertook  to  do  so,  but  of  course  the  culprits  could  not  be  iden- 
tified and  it  was  reduced  to  excommunicating  them  in  bulk.  It 
was  against  the  representatives  of  the  king  that  the  initial  riots 
of  June  7  and  8,  1640,  were  directed,  when  the  judges  of  the 
royal  Audiencia  and  the  Viceroy,  the  Count  of  Santa  Coloma, 
were  murdered.  The  inquisitors  at  once  proffered  their  services 
to  the  Diputados  and,  at  the  request  of  the  latter,  they  wrote  to  the 
king  and  inquisitor-general  praising  the  efforts  of  the  Diputados  to 
preserve  peace,  not  knowing  that  for  months  they  had  been  organ- 
izing the  rebellion  in  correspondence  with  France.  When  too,  in 
September,  a  tax  was  laid  to  put  the  land  in  a  state  of  defence, 
the  assent  of  the  tribunal  was  asked  as  to  levying  it  on  familiars.^ 

There  was  thus  no  open  hostility  towards  the  Inquisition,  but, 
at  the  same  time,  there  was  no  respect  for  its  inviolability.  When 
the  mob  rose  again  on  Christmas  day,  to  put  to  death  all  Cas- 
tilians,  there  was  a  report  that  two  thousand  of  them  were  con- 
cealed in  the  Inquisition.  Led  by  a  coachman  of  one  of  the 
inquisitors,  the  people  broke  into  the  Inquisition,  maltreated  the 
officials,  hanged  some  of  them,  emptied  the  money  chests  and 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  9,  n.  1,  fol.  561,  572, 
573,  575. 

'  Parets,  Sucesos  de  Cataluna  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  Tom.  XX,  164-82;  Append. 
299,  301,  318,  426;  Tom.  XXI,  Append.  158,  193,  409;  Tom.  XXII,  10, 27; Tom. 
XXV,  Append.  290. 


Chap.  IV]  CATALONIA  477 

found  in  the  secret  prison  a  solitary  Castilian  on  trial  for  heresy. 
Him  they  carried  to  the  town-council  who  returned  him  to  the 
tribunal  and  garroted  the  coachman/ 

When,  on  January  23,  1641,  terms  of  submission  to  France 
were  concluded,  the  Inquisition  was  provided  for.  Having  cut 
loose  from  Spain,  it  was  impossible  to  permit  the  tribunal  to 
remain  subject  to  the  Suprema  in  Madrid,  and  the  clause  respect- 
ing it  was  that  all  inquisitors  and  officials  should  be  Catalans, 
jurisdiction  should  be  restricted  to  matters  of  faith,  and  it  should 
be  directly  under  the  Roman  Congregation  of  the  Holy  Office.^ 
Still  the  inquisitors  remained  at  their  posts ;  for  five  months  they 
had  had  no  word  from  the  Suprema;  they  expected  to  be  called 
upon  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  King  Louis  and  they  sent 
their  secretary,  Juan  de  Eraso,  to  Madrid  for  instructions,  sug- 
gesting that  they  had  better  move  to  Tarragona  or  Tortosa. 
Philip  ordered  them  to  remain  and  they  resolutely  obeyed,  but 
the  situation  grew  constantly  worse  and,  on  November  7th,  they 
made  another  appeal,  representing  their  danger,  their  destitution, 
their  inabihty  to  perform  their  functions,  and  their  expectation 
that  they  would  be  forced  to  kiss  the  hands  of  the  Marshal  de 
Breze,  the  approaching  French  governor.  This  was  confirmed 
by  Don  Antonio  de  Aragon,  who  had  just  returned  from  Barce- 
lona; on  two  occasions  the  mob  had  set  fire  to  the  Inquisition 
and  heresy  was  rampant,  for  many  of  the  French  troops  were 
Calvinists  and  Calvinism  was  openly  preached.  The  Suprema 
characteristically  debated  the  question  under  four  heads — Shall 
the  Inquisition  be  removed  to  Tarragona  or  Tortosa?  Shall  the 
inquisitors  kiss  the  hands  of  the  French  governor?  Does  their 
lack  of  means  to  prosecute  relieve  them  from  prosecuting  native 
or  French  heretics  ?  Shall  testimony  against  such  heretics  be  taken 
in  Madrid  and  action  be  based  on  it?  After  elaborate  discussion 
the  fourth  question  was  decided  in  the  affirmative  and  the  other 
three  in  the  negative.  Juan  de  Mailozca  was  appointed  to  gather 
testimony  in  Madrid,  and  the  inquisitors  were  told  to  stand  their 
ground  and  do  their  duty,  using  censures  and  interdict  if  neces- 
sary. If  driven  from  the  town,  they  were  to  carry  with  them  the 
records  so  as  to  be  able  to  work  elsewhere.^ 


*  Parets,  Tom.  XXII,  p.  30;  Append,  p.  243. — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisi- 
cion,  Lib.  33,  fol.  675. 

^  Parets,  T.  XXII,  Append,  pp.  308,  330;  XXV,  Append,  pp.  391,  403. 
3  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  33,  fol.  175,  830;  Lib.  21,  fol.  309. 


478  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

One  of  the  inquisitors,  Dr.  Cotoner,  had  left  Barcelona  for  his 
home  in  Majorca.  The  other  two,  with  most  of  the  officials,  stood 
to  their  post  and,  in  August,  1643,  they  were  called  upon  to  utter 
fearful  curses  on  unknown  parties  supposed  to  have  committed 
a  sacrilegious  theft  of  consecrated  hosts.^  Towards  the  end  of 
September,  however,  they  were  expelled,  to  give  place  to  a  native 
tribunal,  and  it  was  done  with  a  refinement  of  cruelty.  There  were 
ten  in  all — seven  subordinates  and  the  son  of  one  of  them,  besides 
the  two  inquisitors — who  had  stood  faithful  to  their  duty.  They 
were  put  on  board  a  vessel,  with  orders  to  land  them  in  Portugal, 
which,  like  Catalonia,  was  in  revolt  against  Spain.  Although  the 
crew  consisted  of  Catalans  and  Frenchmen,  they  were  persuaded 
to  put  into  Cartagena,  with  a  promise  of  being  allowed  to  sell  their 
cargo  there.  The  reception  of  the  refugees  was  most  inhospit- 
able ;  the  vessel  was  seized  and  the  cargo  and  effects  of  passengers 
and  crew  were  embargoed:  much  red  tape  had  to  be  cut  and  it 
was  not  until  December  that  the  conclusion  was  reached  that 
the  crew  had  rendered  an  essential  service  exposing  them  to  pun- 
ishment by  the  rebels,  wherefore  the  vessel  was  released  and  they 
were  allowed  to  dispose  of  the  cargo. ^ 

The  refugees  were  without  salaries  or  resources  and  it  was 
not  without  difficulty  and  delay  that  the  vSuprema,  professing  its 
own  inability  to  help  them,  secured  from  Philip  some  moderate 
ayudas  de  costa  to  keep  them  alive.  Then,  in  March,  1644,  it 
ordered  them  to  open  a  tribunal  at  Tarragona,  at  the  same  time 
representing  to  the  king  that  this  would  cost  forty-five  hundred 
ducats  in  silver  for  the  first  year,  and  four  thousand  annually 
thereafter,  which  might  be  supplied  from  the  two  millions  of 
maravedis  coming  from  the  tribunal  of  Cartagena — apparently 
some  recent  large  confiscation — as  otherwise  they  would  die  of 
starvation.  They  were  doubtless  thus  provided  for  and  did  what 
they  could  to  restore  the  old-time  dread  of  the  Holy  Office.  It 
had  sadly  diminished  in  these  evil  days  for,  in  this  same  year, 
1644,  in  the  neighboring  town  of  Tortosa,  Inquisitor  Roig  of 
Valencia  complained  that,  on  reaching  there  during  his  visitation, 
the  magistrates  did  not  come  to  receive  him,  they  assigned  him 
no  lodgings  and  they  refused  to  publish  his  proclamation,^ 


*  Parets,  Tom.  XXIV,  p.  316.— Archivo  de  Simancas,  Lib.  65,  fol.  41. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  65,  fol.  41,  48;  Lib.  22,  fol.  83. 

'  Ibidem,  Lib.  65,  fol.  31,  50;  Lib.  36,  fol.  74. — Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inqui- 
sicion de  Valencia,  Leg.  9,  n.  2,  fol.  323. 


Chap.  IV]  CATALONIA  479 

Meanwhile,  in  accordance  with  the  terms  arranged  with  France, 
the  Catalans  had  organized  a  national  Inquisition.  Doctor  Paulo 
Ferran  and  Doctor  Joseph  Pla  were  appointed  and  appHcation 
was  made  for  the  usual  papal  faculties.  These  were  granted  and, 
when  the  briefs  were  received,  September  26,  1643,  they  were 
installed  and  the  Castilians  were  expelled.  The  new  tribunal 
had  not  much  to  do.  It  did  not  meddle  with  the  Calvinists  in 
the  French  armies,  but  it  vindicated  its  authority  by  an  auto  de 
fe,  celebrated  February  23,  1644,  in  which  one  victim  was  gar- 
roted  and  burnt  and  there  were  two  penitents.  There  was 
another,  November  7,  1647,  in  which  there  was  an  execution  for 
unnatural  crime  and  six  men  and  five  women  penitents,  mostly 
for  bigamy  and  sorcery.  The  only  other  evidence  of  activity 
that  I  have  met  is  an  investigation  ordered  by  Pla,  at  the  request 
of  the  parish  priest  of  Pineda,  resulting  in  the  trial  of  Anthoni 
Morell.^ 

When  the  troubles  of  the  Fronde  compelled  Mazarin  to  with- 
draw the  French  armies,  the  rebellion  collapsed,  in  spite  of  the 
obstinate  determination  of  the  Catalans  to  sever  relations  with 
Castile.  When  Barcelona  surrendered,  October  11,  1652,  Cata- 
lonia was  left  at  the  mercy  of  the  conqueror,  but  Philip,  with 
true  statesmanship,  restored  it  to  its  ancient  privileges  and 
liberties,  save  a  few  exceptions  which  have  no  bearing  on  our 
subject.^  Inquisitor  Pla  had  lingered  at  Gerona,  continuing  his 
functions  in  virtue  of  his  papal  brief.  He  was  found  there  by  the 
Marquis  of  Olias  y  Mortara,  who  only  ventured  to  suspend  him 
and  wrote  to  the  king,  October  12,  1652,  for  instructions,  adding 
that  the  prompt  re-establishment  of  the  Inquisition  would  con- 
duce greatly  to  the  pacification  of  the  land.  The  Council  of 
Aragon,  November  16th,  approved  of  this  and  the  next  day 
Philip  instructed  the  inquisitor-general  to  make  the  appointments 
and  despatch  the  inquisitors  at  once.'  There  were  financial  diffi- 
culties, however.  January  18,  1653,  the  Suprema  reported  the 
appointments;  the  infection  of  heresy  by  the  French  promised 
much  work,  but  there  was  an  utter  lack  of  money;  the  tribunal 
would  cost  six  thousand  ducats  a  year,  while  its  resources  were 
but  two  thousand,  for  the  separation  of  Roussillon  lost  it  a 


1  Parets,  T.  XXIV,  pp.  137,  147,  296.— Proceso  contra  Anthoni  Morell  (MSS. 
of  Am.  Philos.  Society). 

2  Parets,  T.  XXV,  p.  142. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  38,  fol.  390. 


480  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

thousand  and  it  had  two  thousand  more  in  Barcelona  loans  which 
were  incollectable;  there  was  prospect  however  of  large  confis- 
cations, for  many  Catalans  had  fled  to  France  who  would  be 
prosecuted  and,  on  the  strength  of  this,  the  king  was  asked  for 
four  thousand  a  year/  The  adjustment  of  these  questions  prob- 
ably required  time,  for  it  was  not  until  August  2d  that  the  new 
inquisitors  took  possession  of  their  office,  riding  in  state  through 
the  city,  with  drums  and  trumpets  and  the  standard  of  the  Holy 
Office,  followed  by  all  the  familiars  and  officials  of  Barcelona, 
and  making  public  proclamation  in  the  customary  places.  The 
next  day,  Sunday,  the  Edict  of  Faith  was  read  and  on  Monday 
they  commenced  their  functions.  Of  the  Catalan  inquisitors, 
Pla  died'  within  a  few  days  and  Ferran  was  arrested  at  night  as 
were  many  others,  some  of  whom  were  sent  to  France  and  others 
were  deported  to  Majorca.  Apparently  their  official  acts  were 
not  recognized,  for  familiars  of  their  appointment  continued  for 
some  years  to  apply  for  reinstatement.^ 

No  sooner  was  the  tribunal  re-established  than  the  old  troubles 
recommenced.  Abuses  must  have  been  flagrant  to  call  forth  from 
Philip,  June  2,  1661,  a  cedula  ordering  the  exact  observance  of 
the  Concordias  and  restraining  the  excessive  use  of  excommuni- 
cation.^ The  quarrels  which  arose  were  prolonged  and  compli- 
cated by  every  possible  device.  On  February  15,  1664,  Juan 
Matheu,  actual  receiver  and  acting  alguazil  mayor  of  the  tri- 
bunal, was  murdered.  On  most  slender  suspicion,  the  next  day, 
it  arrested  Joseph  Guimart  and  Joseph  Massart;  the  Audiencia 
claimed  the  case  and  the  tribunal  refused  to  enter  into  a  com- 
petencia  until  the  Banch  Reyal  threatened  the  inquisitors  with 
banishment.  Then  they  averted  the  preliminary  conference  by 
questions  of  etiquette,  repeatedly  disregarding  the  orders  of  the 
Suprema,  until  the  intervention  of  the  queen-regent  enforced 
obedience.  The  conference  was  at  last  held  and  the  papers  were 
transmitted  to  the  Suprema  and  Council  of  Aragon  to  decide  as 
to  the  jurisdiction.  While  this  was  pending,  the  inquisitors  started 
another  trouble.  They  had  confined  the  prisoners  in  the  secret 
prison  as  though  guilty  of  heresy.  This  was  a  grievous  hardship 
and  the  queen  ordered  them  transferred  to  the  common  prison; 
the  inquisitors  reported  that  this  had  been  done  and  then,  on 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  65,  fol.  81. 
»  Parets,  T.  XXV,  p.  171.— MSS.  of  Am.  Philos.  Society. 
»  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  HaUe,  Yc,  17. 


Chap.  IV]  CATALONIA  481 

pretext  of  information  as  to  a  plot  to  escape,  brought  them  back 
to  the  secret  prison.  When  the  Suprema  heard  of  this  it  wrote 
in  a  tone  of  mingled  anger  and  fear,  lest  it  should  be  discovered 
by  the  Council  of  Aragon;  the  prisoners  must  be  moved  back 
again;  the  affair  had  become  too  important,  the  Council  of  Aragon 
had  made  too  many  efforts  and  the  queen  imputed  it  all  to  the 
Suprema  as  they  would  see  by  her  enclosed  order.  Then  the 
competencia  was  suspended  by  the  escape  of  the  prisoners, 
March  9,  1666,  and  the  last  we  hear  of  the  matter  is  their  nego- 
tiation for  a  pardon,  in  1668,  on  terms  of  which  the  viceroy 
advised  the  acceptance,  in  order  to  avoid  decision  of  the  com- 
petencia. It  was  doubtless  so  settled,  for  competing  jurisdic- 
tions had  brought  the  administration  of  justice  into  such  shape 
that  it  was  better  to  let  criminal  accusations  remain  untried  than 
to  decide  between  the  rival  claims.^ 

These  quarrels  were  not  merely  occasional  but  were  continuous 
and  perpetual,  A  letter  of  June  18,  1667,  happens  to  mention 
that  there  were  then  four  or  five  competencias  delayed  by  the 
question  whether  in  the  conferences  the  royal  judge  should  bring 
his  own  notary.^  Perverted  ingenuity  was  constantly  devising 
new  points  over  w^hich  strife  could  be  created.  Prisoners  on  trial 
in  the  royal  gaols  were  sometimes  borrowed  by  the  tribunal  to  be 
prosecuted  for  blasphemy  or  other  trivial  offence  against  the  faith. 
In  1666  a  case  of  this  kind  gave  rise  to  a  question  as  to  the  exact 
form  of  receipt  to  be  given  for  the  body  of  the  culprit,  when  it 
was  pushed  to  such  a  point  that  the  Suprema  ordered  the  excom- 
munication of  all  the  judges  of  the  Audiencia,  and  the  Council  of 
Aragon  complained  to  the  queen-regent  about  the  oppressive 
abuse  of  censures  and  asked  her  to  provide  that  for  the  future 
the  mutual  obligations  of  the  two  tribunals  should  be  equal  and 
reciprocal.^ 

When  the  Inquisition  took  such  pains  to  make  itself  detested, 
one  is  scarce  surprised  to  learn,  from  a  complaint  of  the  Suprema 
in  1677,  that  in  Barcelona  it  had  so  fallen  in  public  esteem  that  it 
was  able  to  procure  but  one  familiar  and  that  the  alguazil  mayor 
had  asked  to  be  relieved  from  carrying  his  wand  of  office,  for  no 


1  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Fondos  del  Consejo,  Leg.  708.— Libro  XIII 
de  Cartas  (MSS.  of  Am.  Philos.  Society). 
'  Libro  XIII  de  Cartas,  p.  240, 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  PV,  3,  n,  69.— Libro  XIII  de  Cartas  (u6i  «up,). 

31 


482  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

noble  was  willing  to  be  seen  walking  with  him  when  he  bore  it.^ 
This  hostility  it  continued  carefully  to  cultivate.  In  December, 
1695,  the  Diputados  and  judges  addressed  to  Carlos  II  a  com- 
plaint of  the  multiplied  excesses  of  the  tribunal,  which  trampled 
on  the  laws  and  liberties  of  the  land,  causing  such  scandals  that 
they  could  no  longer  be  endured  in  silence.  This  had  been  espe- 
cially the  case  since  Bartolome  Antonio  Sans  y  Muiioz  had  been 
inquisitor,  whose  methods  can  be  appreciated  by  a  single  example. 
Captain-general  Marquis  of  Gastaiiara,  had  imprisoned  a  French- 
man named  Jaime  Balle,  on  a  matter  of  state,  Spain  being  at  the 
time  at  war  with  France,  with  strict  orders  to  keep  him  inco- 
municado.  Munoz  suddenly  demanded  an  opportunity  of  taking 
testimony  of  him.  Gastaiiara  was  absent  and  no  one  had  author- 
ity to  violate  his  instructions,  but  the  regent  of  the  royal  chan- 
cery and  the  gaoler  offered,  if  Muiioz  would  declare  it  to  be  a 
matter  of  faith,  to  endeavor  to  find  some  means  of  compliance. 
This  assurance  he  refused  to  give,  even  verbally,  and  he  threat- 
ened the  regent  with  excommunication.  The  Audiencia  invited 
him  to  a  conference,  which  he  refused  and  it  then  cited  him 
before  the  Banch  Reyal,  with  the  customary  warning  of  banish- 
ment and  seizure  of  temporalities.  Muiioz  responded,  December 
29th,  with  a  mandate  to  the  regent  ordering  him,  under  pain  of 
excommunication,  to  allow  the  deposition  of  the  prisoner  to  be 
taken  and  he  followed  this,  within  an  hour,  with  an  excommuni- 
cation published  in  all  the  pulpits  and  affixed  to  all  the  church- 
doors.  The  next  day  this  was  re-aggravated  and  the  regent  was 
publicly  cursed  with  the  awful  anathema  formulated  for  hard- 
ened and  impenitent  sinners.  The  Audiencia  rejoined  with  the 
decree  of  banishment  and  seizure  of  temporalities,  under  the 
customary  term  of  fifteen  days.  The  tribunal  answered  this  with 
a  threat  of  interdict  on  the  city;  it  convoked  all  the  superiors  of 
the  religious  Orders  and  arranged  with  the  clergy  for  a  great 
procession  when  it  should  take  its  departure.  It  kept  its  doors 
closed  and  even  refused  to  receive  the  messengers  of  Gastanara, 
who  had  hastened  back  to  Barcelona,  but  he  delayed  further 
action  until  he  should  communicate  with  Madrid  and  receive  the 
royal  orders.  When  they  came,  on  January  11,  1696,  he  was  at 
Montealegre,  a  couple  of  leagues  from  the  city ;  they  were  sent  to 
him  by  a  special  courier  and  he  returned  the  next  morning  and 

*  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528.   (The  alguazil  mayor  was  usually 
a  man  of  rank.) 


Chap.  IV]  CATALONIA  483 

made  secret  arrangements  for  their  execution.  At  2  p.m.  he  sent 
word  to  Munoz  that  he  wished  to  see  him  on  the  king's  service. 
At  4.30  P.M.  Mmloz  came,  bringing  the  fiscal  with  him.  A  scriv- 
ener was  introduced  who  read  to  him  the  king's  order,  which  he 
said  he  was  ready  to  obey.  Gastaiiara  told  him  that  he  must 
start  at  once;  a  coach  was  at  the  door  to  which  he  was  escorted 
with  all  honor;  lackeys  with  flambeaux  were  ready  and  a  guard 
of  twenty-five  musketeers.  Gastanara  gave  him  money  and  he 
was  provided  with  all  comforts,  even  to  a  courteous  gentleman 
as  a  companion  to  enforce  all  proper  respect  for  him.  As  he  was 
leaving  the  palace,  his  violent  temper  burst  forth  in  regrets  that 
he  had  not  been  allowed  time  to  cast  the  interdict  on  the  city. 
He  was  driven  to  the  embarcadero,  placed  on  board  a  vessel  that 
had  been  made  ready  and  was  conveyed  to  the  nearest  Valencian 
port.  It  is  symptomatic  of  Spanish  conditions  that  in  war-time 
the  captain-general  was  obliged  to  abandon  all  other  duties  and 
devote  a  day  to  kidnapping  a  troublesome  priest,  and  this  is 
emphasized  by  the  fact  that  the  inquisitor-general  rewarded  the 
conduct  of  Munoz  by  appointing  him  to  one  of  the  most  desirable 
tribunals  of  Spain.^  Possibly  this  affair  may  have  influenced 
Carlos  II  in  reissuing,  in  1696,  his  father's  injunction  of  1661  to 
observe  the  Concorclias  exactly  and  to  be  more  sparing  of  excom- 
munications.^ 

Philip  V  was  scarce  seated  on  the  throne  when  he  found  him- 
self confronted  with  the  eternal  question  of  Catalan  hostility 
towards  the  tribunal.  A  consulta  of  the  Suprema,  October  16, 
1701,  warns  him  that  the  inquisitors  of  Barcelona  report  that,  in 
the  Cortes  about  to  assemble,  efforts  will  be  made  to  limit  its 
usefulness  and  he  is  exhorted  to  follow  the  example  of  his 
predecessors.^  Whatever  was  done  was  of  little  consequence  for, 
in  the  war  which  broke  out  soon  afterwards,  Catalonia  enthu- 
siastically acknowledged  the  Archduke  Charles  as  Carlos  III  and 
became  the  stronghold  of  the  Austrian  party.  The  situation  of 
the  rebelHon  of  1640-52  was  duplicated.  The  tribunal  was  with- 
drawn, but  seems  to  have  been  replaced  by  a  local  organization, 
for  an  article  of  the  Cortes  of  1706,  duly  approved  by  the  Aus- 


^  Archive  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  I;eg.  708.— Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion, 
Libro  66,  fol.  179,  189,  228,  252,  283.— BofaruU  y  Broca,  Hist,  de  Catalufia, 
VIII,  385. 

2  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  17. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  66,  fol.  460 


484  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

trian  Carlos,  regulating  the  insaculacion  for  public  office,  recog- 
nizes its  certificates  respecting  its  officials/  Of  course  it  could 
exercise  no  jurisdiction  over  the  heretic  EngUsh  allies;  it  has  left 
no  traces  of  its  activity  and  was  replaced  by  a  revival  of  the  epis- 
copal cognizance  of  heresy.  As  to  places  beyond  the  control  of  the 
Austrian  party,  a  provision  of  the  Suprema,  March  16,  1706, 
extended  the  juriscUction  of  the  Saragossa  tribunal  over  all  that 
should  be  recovered  from  the  enemy  until  such  time  as  the 
Inquisition  of  Barcelona  should  be  re-established.^  The  desperate 
resistance  of  the  Catalans  postponed  this  until  1715,  and  when 
the  tribunal  was  reinstated  it  found  in  the  secret  prison  two  cap- 
tives, Juan  Castillo  a  bigamist  and  Mariana  Costa  accused  of 
sorcery,  both  of  them  confined  by  order  of  the  vicar-general  of 
the  diocese.^  As  all  the  liberties  and  privileges  of  Catalonia  were 
abolished  by  the  conquerors,  its  subsequent  relations  with  the 
Inquisition  offer  no  special  characteristics. 

Majorca  had  no  Concordia  and  its  tribunal  was  free  to  claim 
what  extent  of  jurisdiction  it  saw  fit,  limited  only  by  the  resist- 
ance of  the  civil  authorities,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  energet- 
ically expressed  at  an  early  period.  As  defined  by  Portocarrero, 
in  1623,  in  practice  it  asserted  complete  jurisdiction,  active  and 
passive,  in  civil  and  criminal  cases,  over  its  salaried  and  com- 
missioned officials  and  their  families;  over  familiars,  in  criminal 
matters,  active  and  passive;  in  civil,  passive  only,  with  exclusion 
of  their  families.*  The  occasion  of  his  book  was  a  violent  struggle 
between  the  viceroy  and  the  tribunal,  which  presents  the  ordinary 
features  of  these  contests  for  supremacy  between  rival  depart- 
ments of  the  government.  In  a  search  for  arms  in  the  house  of 
Juan  Zuhez,  receiver  of  confiscations,  some  were  found.  The 
viceroy  at  once  arrested  him,  sentenced  him  to  leave  the  island 
within  twenty-four  hours  and  shipped  him  away.  The  inquis- 
itor promptly  excommunicated  the  viceroy;  the  royal  fiscal 
appealed;  the  viceroy  and  royal  judges  summoned  the  inquisitor 
to  a  conference  preparatory  to  a  competencia  or  to  appear  in  the 
Banch  Reyal  and  defend  his  proceedings.  On  his  refusal  the 
Banch  Reyal  pronounced  sentence  of  banishment  and  seizure 


^  Capitols  de  Cort  en  lo  any  1706,  cap.  34  (Barcelona,  1706,  p.  70). 
'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Seccion  Varios,  Leg.  390. 
'  Ibid.,  Legajo  13. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Sala  39,  Leg.  4,  fol.  23. 
*  Portocarrero,  U  21,  22. 


Chap.  IV]  MAJORCA— CASTILE  435 

of  temporalities,  which  was  published  with  sound  of  drum  and 
trumpet.  They  also  issued  an  edict  declaring  the  censures  null 
and  void  and  ordering  the  clergy  to  disregard  them;  they  refused 
to  consider  themselves  excommunicated,  they  attended  mass  and 
apparently  had  the  support  of  the  people  and  clergy,  for  no  atten- 
tion was  paid  to  the  interdict  cast  on  the  city  by  the  inquisitor.^ 
What  was  the  final  result  does  not  appear,  nor  does  it  much 
matter;  the  significance  in  these  affairs  is  the  spectacle  presented 
to  the  people  of  lawless  collisions  between  the  representatives 
and  exponents  of  the  law. 

In  Majorca  the  most  impressive  cases  of  this  kind  occurred 
between  the  Inquisition  and  the  ecclesiastical  courts  and  will  be 
considered  hereafter.  It  suffices  here  to  say  that  broils  with  the 
secular  authorities  were  constant  and  contributed  their  share 
to  occupy  and  distract  the  attention  of  the  central  government. 
It  would  be  superfluous  to  enumerate  those  of  which  the  details 
have  chanced  to  reach  us;  they  would  merely  prove  that,  consid- 
ering their  small  size  and  scanty  population,  the  Balearic  Isles 
were  not  behind  their  continental  sisters  of  Aragon  in  adding  to 
the  perplexities  of  the  monarchy. 

This  somewhat  prolonged  recital  of  the  struggles  of  the  king- 
doms of  the  Crown  of  Aragon  gives  an  opportunity  of  realizing 
the  stubborn  resistance  to  the  arrogant  pretensions  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, of  provinces  which  still  retained  institutions  through  which 
public  opinion  could  assert  itself.  The  people  of  the  kingdoms 
of  Castile  had  been  reduced  to  submission  under  the  absolutism 
of  the  House  of  Austria  and,  though  they  might  at  times  com- 
plain, they  could  make  no  effective  efforts  to  ameliorate  their 
position.  When,  in  1579  and  again  in  1583,  the  Cortes  of  Castile 
complained  of  the  arrest  and  immurement  in  the  secret  prisons 
of  individuals  in  every  quarrel  with  an  official  of  the  Inquisition, 
to  the  permanent  disgrace  of  families,  PhiUp  II  merely  replied 
that  he  would  make  inquiry  and  take  such  action  as  was  fitting.^ 
The  only  resource  was  to  raise  contests  in  individual  cases  and 
these  were  frequent  enough  and  violent  enough  to  prove  that 
there  was  the  same  spirit  of  opposition  to  inquisitorial  encroach- 
ment and  the  same  pervading  discontent  with  the  abuses  flour- 
ishing so  rankly  under  inquisitorial  protection.    Instances  of  this 

1  Portocarrero  ?|  51,  54,  58,  60,  61,  65,  96,  97. 
'  Lafuente,  Hist.  gen.  de  Espafia,  XIV,  417,  432. 


480  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

could  be  cited  almost  without  limit,  but  one  or  two  will  suffice 
as  examples  of  the  multiform  aspect  of  these  quarrels  and  the 
temper  in  which  they  were  fought  over.  It  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that,  in  these  struggles  as  in  those  of  Aragon,  there  was  no 
question  of  freedom  of  conscience  and  no  desire  to  limit  the 
effectiveness  of  the  Holy  Office  as  the  guardian  of  purity  of  faith. 
The  Castilian,  like  the  Catalan,  looked  with  exultation  on  the 
triumph  over  heresy  in  the  autos  de  fe,  and  he  desired  only  to  set 
bounds  to  the  intrusion  of  the  Inquisition  on  the  field  of  secular 
justice. 

The  chancellery  of  Granada  was  the  supreme  tribunal  of  New 
Castile  as  that  of  Valladolid  was  of  Old  Castile.  The  alcaldes  of 
its  Sala  del  Crimen  constituted  the  highest  criminal  court,  from 
which  there  was  no  appeal  save  to  God.  April  15,  1623,  the 
alcalde  mayor,  after  five  days'  trial,  condemned  Geronimo  Palo- 
mino, an  habitual  criminal  and  ruflan,  to  two  hundred  lashes 
and  six  years  of  galleys  for  various  offences,  including  sundry 
blasphemies;  on  the  24th,  the  Sala  confirmed  the  sentence  and 
ordered  its  execution.  On  the  same  day  the  Inquisition  served 
two  notices  on  the  alcalde  mayor  prohibiting  his  cognizance  of 
the  case,  as  some  of  the  alleged  crimes  concerned  the  faith,  over 
which  it  had  exclusive  jurisdiction,  and  it  demanded  the  sur- 
render of  the  accused  and  of  all  the  papers  under  the  customary 
comminations.  The  alcalde  mayor  responded  by  calling  for  a 
competencia  and  offering  to  deliver  Palomino  for  trial  on  any 
charges  of  heresy,  if  record  were  made  that  he  was  already  a 
galley-slave  to  be  returned  to  the  royal  prison.  The  next  day 
the  tribunal  sent  to  the  prison  and  claimed  him,  on  the  pretext 
that  the  case  had  been  transferred  to  it,  whereupon  the  alcaide 
of  the  prison  surrendered  him  without  orders  from  the  judges. 
When  the  latter  heard  of  this  they  also  learned  that  the  transfer 
had  been  effected  through  the  efforts  of  the  prisoner's  friends 
and  liberal  bribery  of  the  officials  of  the  tribunal,  who  had  been 
active  in  getting  him  out  of  prison.  After  satisfying  themselves 
of  this  by  investigation,  they  ordered  the  arrest  of  four  laymen 
— a  notary,  a  messenger  and  two  familiars — and  they  further 
imprisoned  in  their  houses  the  alcalde  mayor  and  alcaide  of  the 
prison  for  acting  without  informing  the  Sala.  The  tribunal  con- 
cluded Palomino's  trial  within  forty-eight  hours,  sentencing  him 
to  hear  a  mass  in  the  audience  chamber,  and  it  appears  that  it 
returned  him.     It  further  commenced  proceedings  against  the 


Chap.  IV]  CASTILE  437 

alcaldes,  summoning  them  to  liberate  the  officials  within  three 
hours  under  pain  of  excommunication.  The  alcaldes  protested 
against  this  and  demanded  a  competencia,  as  provided  under 
the  Concordia,  but  the  next  day  they  were  excommunicated  in 
all  the  churches  and  this  was  followed  by  an  interdict  laid  on  the 
city.  This  forced  a  compromise  by  which  the  prisoners  were 
liberated,  subject  to  rearrest  in  case  the  competencia  should 
result  in  justifying  the  alcaldes,  and  the  latter  were  absolved  from 
the  censures.  The  matter  seemed  to  be  settled,  but  all  parties 
had  counted  without  the  impetuous  and  aggressive  Inquisitor- 
general  Pacheco.  Without  awaiting  further  information,  and  in 
disregard  of  the  laws  prescribing  peaceful  settlement  by  com- 
petencias,  he  had  evoked  the  case  to  himself  and  acted  upon  it 
off-hand.  Two  days  after  the  absolution,  the  inquisitors  reim- 
posed  the  excommunication  by  his  command,  and  notices  were 
served  on  the  alcaldes  and  their  alguazil  mayor  to  appear  before 
him  within  fifteen  days  to  stand  trial.  Against  this  they  pro- 
tested and,  on  their  failure  to  appear,  they  were  not  only  excom- 
municated afresh  but  anathematized  in  all  the  churches.  The 
scandal  had  thus  assumed  national  proportions.^ 

The  alcaldes  were  the  direct  and  highest  judicial  representa- 
tives of  the  king,  but  such  was  Philip's  subservience  to  the 
Inquisition  that  he  would  not  permit  a  competencia  following 
the  regular  course  but  took  the  affair  into  his  own  hands.  The 
President  of  the  Council  of  Castile,  in  remitting  to  the  royal  favor- 
ite Olivares,  July  4,  1623,  a  memorial  from  the  Council,  declared 
that  the  condition  to  which  the  chancellery  of  Granada  was 
reduced,  owing  to  the  methods  of  the  Inquisition,  was  the  most 
ignominious  that  had  ever  been  heard  of  in  Spain,  especially 
considering  how  slight  was  the  cause  of  all  this  disquiet,  for, 
when  everything  was  settled  it  was  again  enkindled  at  the  man- 
date of  the  inquisitor-general.  As  the  matter  was  in  the  king's 
hands,  the  Council  could  do  nothing  but  appeal  to  his  majesty, 
with  all  the  disadvantages  under  which  it  labored  in  combating  the 
inquisitor-general ;  had  its  hands  been  free  it  might  already  have 
conquered,  to  the  benefit  of  the  royal  jurisdiction  and  service  of  the 
king,  for  every  day  brought  greater  disturbance  to  the  Republic.^ 


*  This  account  it  derived  from  the  printed  argument  of  the  alcaldes,  a  very 
temperate  and  manly  document,  of  which  a  copy  is  in  the  Bodleian  Library, 
Arch.  S,  130. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Leg.  621,  fol.  5. 


488  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

In  spite  of  this  appeal,  Philip  decided  in  favor  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion and  the  humiliation  of  the  chancellery  was  complete.  Yet 
Pacheco  was  not  satisfied  with  victory  and  proceeded  to  trample 
on  the  vanquished.  In  the  course  of  the  quarrel,  Gudiel  de 
Peralta,  one  of  the  judges,  and  Matias  Gonzalez  de  Sepulveda, 
the  fiscal  of  the  court,  had  drawn  up  legal  arguments  in  its  justi- 
fication. These  Pacheco  submitted  to  his  censors,  who  of  course 
discovered  latent  heresies  lurking  in  them,  whereupon  he  ordered 
them  to  be  suppressed  as  heretical  and  announced  his  intention 
of  proceeding  rigorously  against  the  authors.  The  Council,  on 
October  7th,  again  appealed  to  Philip.  The  accused,  it  said,  had 
only  defended  the  royal  jurisdiction  in  a  perfectly  legitimate 
manner;  the  inquisitor-general  should  not  have  attacked  royal 
officials  and  inflicted  irreparable  injury  on  them  and  their  pos- 
terity by  denouncing  them  as  heretics,  without  consulting  the 
king.  He  was  begged  to  intervene  and  order  Pacheco  to  suspend 
proceedings,  while  a  junta  of  the  two  Councils  should  consider 
the  papers  and  decide  what  course  should  be  taken.^  It  is 
probable  that  in  some  such  way  this  indefensible  attempt  was 
suppressed,  for  neither  of  the  inculpated  names  appear  in  the 
Expurgatory  Index  of  Zapata,  in  1632. 

It  would  seem  difficult  to  set  bounds  to  the  power  of  an  organ- 
ization which  could  thus  arbitrarily  employ  the  censures  of  the 
Church  on  any  department  of  the  government,  without  being 
subject  to  control  save  to  that  of  a  king  docile  to  its  exigencies. 
Yet  the  Suprema,  which  always  sustained  the  tribunals  in  their 
wanton  excesses,  adopted  their  quarrels  and  fought  them  unspar- 
ingly to  the  end,  was  thoroughly  conscious  of  their  wrong-doing. 
While  this  conflict  was  in  progress,  it  issued  a  carta  acordada, 
April  23d,  earnestly  exhorting  the  tribunals  to  maintain  friendly 
relations  with  the  royal  officials  and  not  to  waste  time  in  dissen- 
sions to  the  neglect  of  their  duties  in  matters  of  faith;  com- 
petencias  were  always  to  be  admitted  and  no  censures  were  to 
be  employed  without  consulting  the  Suprema,  unless  delay  was 
inadmissible.^ 

How  nugatory  were  these  counsels  of  moderation,  under  the 
dominance  of  such  a  man  as  Pacheco,  was  soon  afterwards  mani- 
fested in  a  still  more  scandalous  outbreak  in  Seville,  under  his 
direction,  in  1625.    The  assistente  or  governor,  Fernando  Ramirez 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Leg.  621,  fol.  45,  47. 

*  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b  p.  349. 


Chap.  IV]  CASTILE  489 

Farinas,  himself  a  member  of  the  Council  of  Castile  and  a  man  of 
high  consideration,  was  excommunicated  and  thus  prevented  from 
concluding  a  negotiation  for  a  donation  to  the  king  of  eighty 
thousand  ducats;  his  alguazil,  an  honorable  man,  was  wounded 
and  was  shut  up  in  prison  to  keep  him  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
tribunal,  which  declared  that  he  was  wanted  on  a  matter  of  faith, 
thus  covering  him  and  his  family  with  infamy.  The  king  and 
Olivares  were  besieged  by  Pacheco  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
Council  of  Castile  on  the  other.  The  king,  as  usual,  sided  with 
the  Inquisition  and  the  President  of  the  Council  tendered  his 
resignation  with  the  suggestion  that  his  office  had  better  be  given 
to  Pacheco  who,  by  holding  both  positions,  could  cover  up  these 
scandals,  while  the  royal  jurisdiction  could  scarce  be  reduced  to 
greater  degradation.  It  is  no  wonder  that  Olivares,  in  a  letter  to 
the  president,  declared  himself  to  be  the  most  unfortunate  of 
men,  for  he  could  satisfy  nobody ;  his  best  course  would  be  to  ask 
the  king  to  let  him  abandon  the  management  of  affairs;  when  the 
kingdom  was  in  such  straits  that  he  could  scarce  take  time  to 
breathe  in  devising  remedies,  his  efforts  were  wasted  in  com- 
petencias  and  he  concluded  with  the  despairing  declaration  that  he 
lost  his  senses  in  thinking  over  it  without  knowing  what  to  say.^ 
The  statesmen  who  were  guiding  the  destinies  of  Spain  in 
those  perilous  times  might  well  groan  under  the  superfluous  burden 
of  deciding  these  contests  over  trifles  so  ferociously  waged,  but 
they  were  not  to  be  spared.  Arce  y  Reynoso  was  not  so  violent 
as  Pacheco  but  he  was  equally  obstinate  and  was  determined  to 
emancipate  the  Inquisition  wholly  by  relieving  it  from  royal 
supervision.  There  was  an  instructive  case  at  Cuenca,  in  1645, 
where  the  corregidor,  Don  Alonso  Munoz  de  Castilblanque  sent 
a  band  of  assassins  to  murder  a  woman  with  whom  he  had  ilhcit 
relations,  together  with  a  priest  named  Jacinto.  The  crime 
created  great  excitement,  but  Munoz  was  a  contador,  or  account- 
ant of  the  tribunal,  and  as  such  a  titular  official.  He  presented 
himself  before  the  inquisitors  who  assumed  his  case  and  promptly 
excommunicated  the  judge  who  attempted  to  prosecute  him. 
Philip  had  the  matter  investigated  and  was  told  that  both  the 
woman  and  the  priest  had  been  killed.  He  sent  to  the  Suprema 
a  decree  ordering  the  removal  of  the  excommunication  and  the 
delivery  of  the  criminal  to  the  Council  of  Castile,  to  be  tried  by 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Leg.  621,  fol.  30-45. 


490  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

the  judge  which  it  had  appointed,  for  the  inquisitors  could  not 
properly  punish  so  atrocious  a  crime  without  incurring  irregu- 
larity. This  was  clear  and  peremptory  enough,  but,  in  place  of 
obeying  it,  Arce  y  Reynoso  replied.  May  4,  1645,  that  this  would 
be  a  great  and  unheard  of  violation  of  the  rights  of  the  Holy 
Office.  The  woman  was  not  dead  but  was  in  Valencia,  where  the 
tribunal  was  busily  collecting  evidence;  to  hand  Munoz  over  to 
the  secular  judges  for  trial  and  execution  would  incur  the  same 
irregularity  as  sentencing  him;  the  case  would  be  tried  by  the 
Suprema,  which  had  a  wide  range  of  suitable  penalties  that  did 
not  infer  irregularity;  meanwhile  Mufioz  would  be  safely  guarded 
and  he  trusted  that  the  king  would  not  set  so  pernicious  an 
example. 

When  Philip  rejected  this  appeal  and  repeated  his  order,  a 
learned  and  elaborate  argument  was  prepared  to  show  that  he 
had  no  power  to  interfere.  It  took  the  ground,  to  which  we  have 
already  referred,  that  the  temporal  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition 
over  its  officials  was  a  grant  from  the  papacy;  it  was  exclusive 
and  unlimited  and  no  secular  ruler  could  deprive  the  Holy  Office 
of  it;  the  pope  had  power  to  make  this  grant  and  the  king  had 
none  to  remove  this  or  any  other  case  from  its  cognizance,  for 
he  was  not  supreme  over  the  ecclesiastical  and  papal  jurisdiction 
— the  truth  being  that  the  papal  commissions  to  the  inquisitor- 
general  conferred  power  to  remove  and  punish  subordinates  but 
said  nothing  as  to  its  being  exclusive,  and  equally  fallacious  was 
the  citation  of  three  authorities  whose  utterances  had  no  bearing 
on  the  question  at  issue.^  This  audacious  reliance  on  the  igno- 
rance of  Philip  and  his  secular  advisers  was  successful.  Philip 
made  one  or  two  efforts  more,  but  Arce  y  Reynoso  held  good. 
A  memorial,  in  1648,  on  the  general  subject,  from  a  member  of 
the  Council  of  Castile,  tells  the  king  that  his  repeated  commands 
in  the  case  of  Muiioz  had  been  disobeyed  and  that,  although  the 
criminal  had  so  long  been  in  the  hands  of  the  inquisitors,  he  had 
not  yet  been  sentenced,  which  he  held  to  be  clear  proof  that  their 
aim  was  to  defend  their  officials  from  the  royal  justice  and  not 
to  punish  them.^ 

^  The  three  passages  cited  were  Simancas,  de  Cathol.  Institt.  Tit.  xxxiv,  n.  6; 
Sousa,  Aphorismi  Inquisit.  Lib.  i,  cap.  1,  n.  16,  and  Peiia  in  Ej^merici  Directo- 
rium,  P.  Ill,  Comment.  61.  Of  the  three  Sousa  comes  nearest  to  supplying  what 
was  wanted  in  saying  that  the  officials  of  the  Inquisition  are  punishable,  for 
official  delinquencies,  by  those  who  appoint  them. 

»  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  X,  157,  fol.  244;  D,  118,  fol.  151,  188. 


Chap.  IV]  CASTILE  49I 

How  liberal  was  the  construction  placed  on  this  term  of  titular 
official  was  illustrated  when,  in  1622,  at  Toledo,  the  corregidor 
arrested  the  butcher  of  the  tribunal  for  intolerable  frauds  on  the 
public.  The  inquisitor  demanded  the  prisoner  and  the  papers, 
published  the  corregidor  in  all  the  churches  as  excommunicate, 
seized  the  alguazil  and  apparitor  who  had  made  the  arrest,  cast 
them  into  the  secret  prison,  tried  them  as  if  for  heresy,  shaved 
their  heads  and  beards  and  banished  them  and  refused  to  their 
families  any  evidence  that  would  preserve  their  posterity  from 
infamy.  There  was  danger  of  a  rising  in  Toledo  against  the 
Inquisition,  but  it  was  averted;  the  Council  of  Castile  protested 
and  a  junta  was  held  which  adopted  measures  to  prevent  a  repe- 
tition of  such  outrages  but,  as  usual,  no  attention  was  paid  to 
them.  ^ 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  multiply  examples  of  the  perennial 
struggle  which  was  distracting  the  energies  of  the  government 
and  weakening  the  respect  for  law  in  every  quarter  of  Spain. 
Each  tribunal  contributed  its  share,  and  there  was  an  unending 
stream  of  cases  pouring  into  Madrid  for  settlement.  Each  side 
blamed  the  other  for  this  anomalous  condition.  In  1632,  the 
Suprema,  in  defending  the  tribunal  of  Valencia  for  its  protec- 
tion of  criminal  familiars,  bitterly  complained  that  the  object 
of  the  Concordias  was  the  relief  of  the  tribunals,  the  punishment 
of  offenders,  the  quick  despatch  of  cases,  and  the  diminished 
oppression  of  pleaders,  but  that  this  had  been  converted  into 
perpetual  strife,  regardless  of  forms  and  rules  of  procedure.^  For 
this  it  was  itself  primarily  to  blame,  for  though  there  were  doubt- 
less faults  on  both  sides,  the  cases  recorded  in  the  reports  and 
the  arguments  of  the  Inquisition  show  that  it  was  the  chief 
offender.  Its  aggressive  powers  were  too  much  greater  than  those 
of  its  adversaries,  and  its  methods  were  too  sharp,  for  the  secular 
authorities  often  to  risk  the  consequences  of  being  in  the  wrong. 

There  was  another  direction  in  which  the  Holy  Office  sought 
to  interfere  with  the  administration  of  justice.  So  complete  is 
the  independence  of  secular  authority  claimed  by  the  Church  for 
those  in  holy  orders,  that  a  Hcence  from  a  bishop  is  held  to  be 
necessary  before  a  cleric  can  obey  a  summons  to  appear  as  a  wit- 


'  Consulta  Magna  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Q,  4). 
Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  20,  fol.  138. 


492  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

ness  in  a  lay  court,  even  in  civil  cases/    The  Inquisition  included 
this  among  the  exemptions  of  all  connected  with  it,  whether  lay 
or  clerical,  and  even  extended  it  to  familiars.    The  privilege  seems 
generally  to  have  been  conceded,  as  respects  the  salaried  officials 
but,  as  applied  to  familiars,  it  was  too  grotesque  not  to  excite 
opposition.     The  Concordia  of  1568,  as  we  have  seen,  provided 
that  familiars  should  testify  before  secular  judges  without  requir- 
ing licence  from  inquisitors  and  that  the  latter  should  not  pro- 
hibit them  from  so  doing,  which  infers  that  it  was  an  abuse 
requiring  correction  and  also  that  officials  were  conceded  to  enjoy 
the  exemption.     The  power  to  summon  a  witness  necessarily 
includes  that  of  coercing  him  to  testify,  and  this  was  exercised 
by  imprisoning  recalcitrants,  which  came  to  be  regarded  as  an 
infraction  of  privilege.     In  1649,  in  the  case  of  Claudio  Bolano, 
a  familiar  imprisoned  for  refusing  to  give  evidence,  the  tribunal 
of  Valencia  formed  a  competencia,  pending  which  he  was  released 
under  bail  to  both  jurisdictions.     The  question  was  of  difficult 
solution  and  the  competencia  dragged  on  for  ten  years  without 
settlement.    Then,  in  1659,  the  same  thing  occurred  and  another 
competencia  was  formed,  in  which  the  most  that  the  Inquisition 
would  concede  was  that,  when  the  evidence  was  indispensable,  a 
notary  should  be  sent  to  the  famifiar's  house  to  take  it  in  secret, 
basing  this  upon  the  danger  to  which  witnesses  were  exposed  in 
the  violent  factions  of  the  time.^     The  question,  however,  was 
settled,  in  1699,  in  the  case  of  Fefipe  Bru.    At  Jativa,  on  August 
14,  1698,  Don  Luis  Salzedo,  Lord  of  Pamis,  was  shot  and  killed 
when  standing  at  a  window  of  his  house.    Don  Vicente  Monserrat, 
judge  of  the  Audiencia  of  Valencia,  found  Bru,  who  was  a  familiar, 
a  contumacious  witness.    He  was  first  given  the  town  as  a  prison, 
then  his  house,  and  finally  was  confined  in  chains.    He  appealed 
to  the  tribunal,  which  ordered  his  release  within  three  days,  under 
pain  of  excommunication   and   five  hundred   ducats.     A  com- 
petencia was  formed  which,  in  November,  1699,  was  decided  in 
favor  of  the  royal  jurisdiction.     It  was  probably  in  consequence 
of  this  discussion  that,  on  July  15th,  a  royal  decree  was  issued 
compelling  familiars  to  give  evidence  in  secular  courts.     Even 
this  did  not  abate  the  pretensions  of  the  Inquisition  for  when, 
in  1702,  Joseph  Perez  of  Montesa,  a  familiar,  was  ordered,  under 
penalty  of  a  thousand  ducats,  not  to  leave  that  town  because  a 

^  Ricci,  Synopsis  Decretorum  S.  Congr.  Immunitatis  s.  v.  Testis,  n.  1. 
'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  1,  fol.  157. 


Chap.  IV]  THE  SPIRITUAL  CO  UBTS  493 

deposition  was  wanted  from  him,  he  appealed  to  the  tribunal  of 
Valencia  which,  with  the  usual  threats,  commanded  the  revoca- 
tion of  the  order.  On  this  being  refused,  Perez  went  to  Valencia 
and  had  himself  incarcerated  in  the  secret  prison,  where  he  was 
inaccessible.  The  Audiencia  pursued  the  matter,  there  was  con- 
siderable correspondence  and  preparations  for  a  competencia, 
but  finally  the  affair  was  settled  by  sending  Perez  to  the  house 
of  the  regent  of  the  Audiencia,  where  he  made  his  deposition. 
To  the  end,  however,  the  tribunal  maintained  the  position  that, 
if  any  constraint  was  used,  it  would  resist  and  protect  the  familiar 
unless  a  competencia  decided  to  the  contrary.^ 

It  was  not  the  secular  courts  alone  that  had  these  perpetual 
conflicts  with  the  Inquisition.  Like  Ishmael,  its  hand  was  against 
every  man  and  every  man's  hand  was  against  it — but,  in  fact,  this 
was  to  a  great  extent  the  case  between  all  the  different  jurisdic- 
tions among  which  the  various  classes  of  society  were  parcelled 
out  by  their  several  privileges  and  exemptions.  Next  to  the 
royal  courts  ranked  the  spiritual  courts  in  the  number  and  com- 
plexity of  debatable  questions  with  the  Inquisition.  With  these 
there  were  two  sources  of  contention,  for  they  not  only  claimed 
by  prescriptive  right  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  all  temporal  matters 
over  all  who  wore  the  tonsure,  but  there  was  a  broad  field  for 
discussion  in  the  somewhat  hazy  delimitation  of  spiritual  offences 
justiciable  by  one  or  the  other.  This  latter  subject  will  engage 
our  attention  hereafter;  at  present  we  are  concerned  only  with 
the  questions  arising  from  the  personnel  of  the  Holy  Office.  Noto- 
riously lax  as  were  the  episcopal  courts  with  offenders  of  the  cloth, 
the  Inquisition  had  the  reputation  of  still  greater  indulgence 
with  those  who  were  under  its  protection;  clerics  who  were  also 
officials  therefore  preferred  its  tribunals,  giving  rise  to  frequent 
quarrels  in  which  the  inquisitors  treated  their  clerical  opponents 
as  remorselessly  as  they  did  the  secular  officials  and  judges.  The 
episcopal  Ordinaries,  provisors  and  vicars-general  contended  that 
they  had,  except  in  cases  of  faith,  exclusive  jurisdiction  over  all 
clerics;  that  the  temporal  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition  was  a 
royal  grant  which  could  not  supersede  the  canon  law  and  that 
the  papal  commissions  only  gave  faculties  for  punishing  official 
malfeasance.     To   this  unanswerable  argument  the  inquisitors 


»  Ibidem,  Leg.  1,  n.  3,  fol.  3,  11,  25. 


494  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

paid  little  heed  and  the  prelates  were  worse  off  than  the  judges, 
for  these  at  least  had  the  Councils  of  Castile  or  Aragon  to  struggle 
for  them,  but  the  Councils  admitted  that  they  had  no  standing 
in  ecclesiastical  quarrels.  The  natural  recourse  of  the  prelates 
for  protection  was  to  Rome,  but  this  was  a  subject  of  intense 
jealousy,  traditional  in  the  Spanish  monarchy,  and  Philip  III,  in 
a  cedula  of  January  21,  1611,  adchessed  to  all  the  prelates  of  his 
dominions,  told  them  that  they  must  appeal  only  to  the  Suprema 
and  forbade  them  to  carry  any  case  to  the  Holy  See/ 

There  could  thus  be  no  competencia;  the  conflicts  between 
the  two  jurisdictions  were  one-sided  and  were  conducted  by  the 
tribunals  with  the  same  overbearing  arrogance  as  that  displayed 
towards  secular  magistrates.  The  first  summons  on  the  provisor 
or  vicar-general  inhibited  him,  under  pain  of  excommunication 
and  a  heavy  fine,  from  further  action,  ordering  him,  within 
twenty-four  hours,  to  remit  the  case  to  the  Inquisition  and  to 
discharge  the  prisoner  under  bail  to  present  himself  before  the 
tribunal,  while  the  notary  was  required  to  surrender  all  the 
papers.  If  this  was  not  obeyed,  it  was  followed  by  another,  com- 
manding obedience  within  six  hours,  in  default  of  which  all 
beneficed  priests  were  required,  under  similar  penalties,  to  pub- 
Hsh  the  provisor  and  notary  as  excommunicates  and  to  place 
their  names  on  the  hsts  as  such.  A  circular  letter  was  also 
addressed  to  all  priests,  chaplains  and  sacristans  of  the  district, 
to  admonish  all  persons,  within  six  hours  and  under  pain  of 
excommunication,  to  avoid  the  provisor  and  notary,  to  make 
no  pleadings  before  them,  to  hold  no  communication  with  them 
and  not  to  furnish  them  with  bread  or  wine,  fish  or  flesh,  while 
a  public  edict  to  the  same  effect  was  issued  to  all  the  people.  In 
case  of  continued  obduracy,  these  measures  were  promptly  fol- 
lowed by  an  edict  to  all  the  clergy,  ordering  them  to  anathematize 
the  provisor  and  notary  with  tolling  bells  and  extinguished 
candles,  proclaiming  them  accursed  of  God  and  his  saints— 
"accursed  be  the  bread  that  they  eat  and  the  bed  on  which  they 
sleep  and  the  beasts  on  which  they  ride,  and  may  their  souls 
perish  in  hell  hke  the  candles  in  the  water:  let  them  be  compre- 
hended in  the  sentence  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrha  and  of  Dathan 
and  Abiram,  whom  the  earth  swallowed  for  disobedience,  and 
may  all  the  curses  of  Psalm  Deus  laudem  meam  (Ps.  cviii,  a 


1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  13,  fol.  145. 


Chap.  IV]  THE  SPIRITUAL  COURTS  495 

fearful  commination)  light  on  them!"  If  this  did  not  suffice 
within  twenty-four  hours,  an  interdict  followed,  tolHng  bells  and 
performing  divine  service  in  low  tone  with  locked  doors,  until 
otherwise  ordered.  In  case  this  failed,  the  last  step  was  a  cessatio 
a  divinis,  or  cessation  of  church  services  in  the  city  where  the 
offenders  lived,  in  order  to  coerce  them  with  popular  clamor.^ 
It  was  chfficult  for  either  lay  or  clerical  officials  to  contend  with 
opponents  who  wielded  such  weapons  as  these. 

The  irresponsible  exercise  of  such  powers  inevitably  led  to 
their  abuse.  In  the  Concordia  of  1568  it  is  highly  suggestive  to 
find  a  clause  forbidding  inquisitors  to  issue,  as  they  have  been 
accustomed,  to  familiars  and  officials,  general  inhibitions  pro- 
tecting them  from  the  ecclesiastical  courts;  such  inhibitions  are 
to  be  special  and  issued  only  in  each  case  as  it  may  occur.  Equally 
significant  is  another  which  says  that  in  no  case  belonging  by 
law  to  the  provisor  shall  the  inquisitor  intervene  against  his  will.' 
The  strained  relations  resulting  between  the  ecclesiastical  body 
and  the  Holy  Office  are  alluded  to  in  the  project  of  reform,  pre- 
sented to  the  Suprema  in  1623,  which  says  that  the  clerical  com- 
missioners and  their  notaries  bring  about  many  conflicts  with 
the  ecclesiastical  judges  and,  as  there  are  no  Concordias,  the 
inquisitors  are  wont  to  arrogate  to  themselves  greater  jurisdic- 
tion than  belongs  to  them,  which  causes  much  murmuring  and 
resentment  of  the  prelates  and  clergy.  The  writer  piously  wishes 
that  this  could  be  avoided,  but  he  evidently  has  no  remedy  to 
propose.^ 

A  conflict  caused  by  one  of  these  local  notaries  in  1609  amply 
justified  the  murmurs  of  the  prelates.  The  priest  of  Cabra,  who 
occupied  the  almost  nominal  position  of  local  notary,  was  a 
notorious  incestuous  concubinarian,  who  had  not  for  eight  years 
celebrated  mass  or  recited  prayers.  The  provisor  of  Cordova 
commenced  a  prosecution  and  threw  him  into  the  episcopal  gaol, 
when  he  claimed  the  fuero  of  the  Inquisition.  The  provisor  had 
been  on  friendly  terms  with  the  three  inquisitors  and  sought  an 
amicable  settlement  of  the  matter  when,  by  a  trick,  they  obtained 
possession  of  the  papers  and  inhibited  him  from  further  proceed- 
ings.    He  appealed  to  the  Suprema  and  was  excommunicated. 

»  Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  27-9  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  122).  The  date  of  this 
is  1645. 

2  Actos  de  Corte  del  Reyno  de  Aragon,  fol.  96  (Zaragoza,  1664). 
^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  926,  fol.  27. 


496  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

Four  times  the  Suprema  ordered  the  inquisitors  to  abandon  the 
case  and  remove  the  censure,  but  they  persistently  disobeyed. 
All  the  officials  of  the  episcopal  court  were  ordered  to  hold  no 
communication  with  him,  which  threw  the  whole  business  of  the 
diocese  into  confusion,  for  the  bishop  was  absent  and  the  provisor 
was  his  representative.  The  culprit  escaped  from  the  episcopal 
gaol  and  was  harbored  by  the  tribunal.  Passion  was  becoming 
acute;  a  band  of  familiars  and  officials  broke  into  the  episcopal 
palace  and  endeavored  to  carry  off  the  provisor,  but  he  was 
rescued  by  the  canons  in  a  dilapidated  condition  and  took  to  his 
bed.  Then  the  inquisitors  pronounced  the  magic  word — a  matter 
of  faith — which  brought  to  their  aid  the  corregidor  and  municipal 
authorities,  who  came  with  a  troop  of  soldiers  and  carried  him 
off  on  his  bed,  to  the  sound  of  drums  and  trumpets.  He  was 
taken  to  the  Inquisition  and  confined  for  two  months  in  a  small 
cell,  tried  without  opportunity  for  defence  and  sentenced  to 
forfeit  his  office  of  provisor,  to  four  years  of  banishment  and 
other  penalties,  and  copies  of  the  sentence  were  circulated  through- 
out the  city.  The  bishop  had  sought  to  come  to  his  rescue  by 
excommunicating  the  inquisitors;  they  disregarded  the  censures, 
threatened  to  prosecute  him  if  he  did  not  remove  them  and  did 
prosecute  some  of  the  canons  as  conspiring  against  the  Inqui- 
sition, because  they  had  been  elected  by  the  chapter  to  aid  the 
bishop  in   defending   the   provisor.^ 

Such  a  sentence  against  a  church  dignitary  of  high  rank 
required  confirmation  by  the  Suprema,  which  must  have  been 
given,  for  appeal  was  made  to  Philip  III.  He  rendered  some 
satisfaction  by  dismissing  and  banishing  all  secular  officials  who 
had  been  concerned  in  the  arrest  and  wounding  of  the  provisor, 
but  the  inquisitors,  whose  mere  tools  they  had  been,  were  left 
undisturbed.^  Yet  it  was  impossible  that  an  affair  which  had 
aroused  the  attention  of  all  Spain  should  pass  without  an  attempt 
to  prevent  the  recurrence  of  such  scandals.  There  had  been  a 
threat,  and  possibly  more  than  a  threat,  to  appeal  to  Rome  in 
defence  of  the  bishop  and  clergy  of  Cordova,  which  led  to  the 
cedula  of  January  21,  1611,  alluded  to  above,  restricting  their 
recourse  to  the  Suprema.  In  urging  this  the  Suprema,  in  a  con- 
sulta  of  November  15,  1610,  admitted  that  these  troubles  arose 

^  These  details  are  furnished  by  a  memorial  to  the  king,  a  copy  of  which  is  in 
the  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S,  130. 

^  Bravo,  Catalogo  de  los  Obispos  de  Cordova,  p.  580. 


Chap.  IV]  THE  SPIRITUAL  COURTS  497 

from  the  aggressions  of  the  tribunals  and  their  unnecessary- 
multiplication  of  nominal  officials;  it  had  recently  issued  three 
cartas  acordadas  on  the  subject  and  had  written  to  all  the  bishops 
asking  reports  of  such  excesses  so  as  to  remedy  them.  Philip  in 
reply  authorized  the  Suprema  to  draft  such  a  cedula  as  it  desired 
but  ordered  it  to  be  so  framed  as  not  to  encourage  the  inquisitors, 
who  were  every  day  intervening  in  matters  beyond  their  com- 
petence for  the  purpose  of  extending  their  jurisdiction;  it  was 
this  that  gave  rise  to  these  troubles,  nor  would  they  cease  till  the 
cause  was  removed.^ 

Thus  it  was  admitted  on  all  hands  that  the  fault  lay  with  the 
tribunals,  yet  the  wrong  committed  by  that  of  Cordova  remained 
unredressed  and  unpunished.  Philip  permitted  himself,  in  spite 
of  his  better  judgement,  to  be  persuaded  to  cut  off  all  recourse  to 
the  court  of  last  resort  in  Rome,  and  some  nominal  relief  must 
be  offered  to  the  oppressed  churches  and  prelates.  The  memorial 
from  Cordova  had  concluded  with  a  prayer  for  some  law  to 
prevent  these  discords  and  to  maintain  the  episcopal  jurisdiction 
over  the  clergy,  as  the  king  had  promised  in  a  letter  transmitted 
through  the  Council  of  Castile.  The  promise  was  kept  after  a 
fashion,  though  not  until  after  a  delay  which  shows  how  pro- 
longed was  the  resistance  encountered.  In  a  carta  acordada  of 
November  28,  1612,  the  tribunals  were  informed  that  in  order 
that  the  ministers  of  the  Inquisition  may  not  sin  through  con- 
fidence of  impunity,  and  to  prevent  the  conflicts  which  disturb 
the  peace,  the  Suprema  has  resolved  that  in  the  cases  of  un- 
salaried clerical  officials,  the  episcopal  ordinaries  shall  have 
exclusive  jurisdiction  over  offences  relating  to  clerical  duties  and 
offices,  to  simony  and  spiritual  matters,  while  inquisitors  shall 
have  cumulative  jurisdiction  with  the  ordinaries,  depending  on 
priority  of  action,  in  public  and  scandalous  offences,  such  as 
incontinence,  usury,  gambling  and  the  like.^  This  remained  in 
force  nominally  at  least,  until  the  last,  but  the  allusion  to  the 
perpetual  troubles  arising  from  this  source,  in  the  project  pre- 
sented to  the  Suprema  in  1623,  shows  how  futile  it  was  in  curbing 
the  aggressions  of  the  tribunals. 


^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  29,  fol.  177;  Lib.  30,  fol.  1  (see  Appen- 
dLx). 

»  Ibidem,  Lib.  30,  fol.  108.— MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218t>, 
p.  348. 

32 


498  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

Throughout  Peninsular  Spain  the  episcopal  jurisdiction  was 
thus  left  defenceless  to  the  encroachments  of  the  Inquisition, 
but  the  Church  of  Majorca  was  fortunate  in  obtaining  the  pro- 
tection of  Rome,  leading  to  a  series  of  conflicts,  waged  on  less 
unequal  terms,  which  are  worth  consideration  as  revealing  a 
peculiar  phase  in  these  affairs.  There  was  a  long-standing  quarrel 
between  the  cathedral  canons  and  the  Inquisition,  In  1600, 
one  of  the  former,  Pere  Enseiiat,  assisted  in  the  escape  of  a  man 
who  had  wounded  a  familiar,  whereupon  the  inquisitor,  Francisco 
de  Esquinel,  threw  him  in  prison  and  made  him  give  bail  in  three 
hundred  ducats.  In  1605,  another  canon,  Francisco  Sanceloni, 
had  a  verbal  altercation  with  Bernardo  Luis  Cotoner,  advocate 
of  prisoners,  for  which  Esquinel  imprisoned  him,  tried  him  and 
condemned  him  in  the  costs,  with  his  past  incarceration  as  a 
punishment.  The  indignant  canons  addressed  a  strong  remon- 
strance to  the  Suprema.  They  had  an  old  privilege,  confirmed 
by  the  Council  of  Trent  (Sess.  xxv,  De  Reform,  cap.  6)  that  they 
could  be  arrested  only  by  the  Ordinary  sitting  in  judgement  with 
two  of  their  number;  in  matters  of  faith  they  admitted  subjection 
to  the  Hoi}''  Office,  but  they  claimed  exemption  in  civil  and 
criminal  cases.  The  number  of  familiars  and  officials,  and  their 
petulance  arising  from  the  protection  of  the  tribunal,  rendered 
it  impossible  to  be  always  incurring  the  expense  and  dangers  of 
appeals  to  Rome  for  the  preservation  of  their  privileges.  This 
was  ineffective  and,  in  the  course  of  another  outbreak  in  1630, 
there  was  a  correspondence  between  the  Congregation  of  the 
Roman  Inquisition  and  the  nuncio  at  Madrid  respecting  an 
appeal  from  the  canons.  In  this  the  nuncio  reported  that  he 
had  applied  to  Inquisitor-general  Zapata,  who  promised  to 
instruct  the  inquisitor  not  to  molest  the  canons.^ 

If  he  did  so,  he  was  disobeyed  as  usual  and,  in  1636,  a  canon 
named  Domenge  was  involved  in  a  civil  suit  before  the  tribunal, 
resulting  in  a  judgement  against  him  of  five  thousand  reales,  the 
execution  of  which  he  resisted  by  force.  This  brought  on  him  a 
prosecution,  in  spite  of  protests  interjected  by  the  bishop  and 
chapter,  which  was  carried  on  appeal  to  the  Suprema,  where  he 
was  condemned  in  seven  hundred  reales  which  he  paid.  Mean- 
while, notwithstanding  the  cedula  of  1611,  the  bishop  and  chapter 
had  applied  to  Rome  for  a  brief  declaring  that  the  canons  were 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  52,  fol.  34. 


Chap.  IV]  THE  SPIRITUAL  COURTS  499 

subject  to  the  Inquisition  only  in  matters  of  faith.  The  question 
was  exhaustively  discussed,  in  the  Congregation  of  the  Holy 
Office,  with  Luis  de  los  Infantes,  the  Roman  agent  of  the  Inqui- 
sition. The  conclusion  reached  was  that  the  Majorca  tribunal 
had  no  jurisdiction  over  the  canons  save  in  matters  of  faith  and 
this  was  duly  embodied  in  the  brief  Cum  sicut  dilecti,  March  31, 
1642,  which  is  preserved  in  the  Bullarium.  It  names  the  bishop 
and  dean  or  treasurer  as  executors,  with  power  to  inflict  censures 
and  to  invoke  if  necessary  the  aid  of  the  secular  arm.  It  was 
received  in  Majorca  with  general  rejoicing;  it  was  printed  and 
circulated  and  a  syndicate  was  formed  by  the  clergy  to  obtain, 
without  regard  to  expense,  a  similar  one  for  the  whole  ecclesi- 
astical body,  an  effort  which  was  successful  in  the  following 
September. 

The  brief  was  duly  served  on  the  inquisitor,  who  refused  to 
recognize  it  as  not  having  been  transmitted  through  the  Suprema; 
besides  he  asserted  that  it  was  surreptitious  and  obreptitious  as 
having  been  granted  without  a  hearing  of  the  other  side  and 
moreover  it  was  in  derogation  of  the  bull  Si  de  protegendis.  In 
a  consulta  of  December  11th,  the  Suprema  represented  energeti- 
cally to  Philip  IV  the  manner  in  which  his  predecessors  had 
compelled  the  surrender  of  papal  letters  adverse  to  the  Inquisi- 
tion; it  asked  him  to  have  the  present  one  suppressed  and  to 
instruct  the  prelates  that  all  cases  of  difference  must  be  referred 
to  it,  that  no  recourse  be  had  to  Rome,  under  the  penalties  decreed 
by  Ferdinand,  that  the  Viceroy  of  Majorca  be  required  to  compel 
the  chapter  to  desist  and  that  the  ambassador  to  Rome  be 
instructed  to  obtain  the  revocation  of  the  obnoxious  letters. 

Unluckily  for  the  Suprema  the  times  were  unpropitious. 
Majorca  was  too  near  to  rebellious  Catalonia  for  the  imperious 
methods  of  the  Holy  Office  to  be  judicious.  Phihp  replied  that 
the  revival  of  Ferdinand's  laws  would  cause  trouble  and  the 
remedy  sought  must  be  practicable.  The  inquisitor  of  Majorca 
had  been  guilty  of  gross  excesses  and  must  be  ordered  to  exercise 
moderation,  and  he  suggested  a  junta  of  members  of  the  Suprema 
and  Council  of  Aragon  to  devise  a  Concordia.  Whether  such 
compromise  was  reached  does  not  appear;  if  it  was,  subsequent 
events  show  that  it  was  not  observed  by  either  side  and  no 
reference  to  it  occurs.  The  papal  briefs  were  maintained  and  ten 
years  later,  after  the  collapse  of  the  Catalan  rebellion,  instruc- 
tions of  April  23,  1652,  to  an  ambassador  departing  for  Rome, 


500  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

order  him  to  labor  for  their  revocation;  their  evil  example  was 
contagious;  the  Knights  of  St.  John  in  Majorca  were  seeking 
to  obtain  a  similar  favor  through  the  Maltese  ambassador, 
which  must  be  resisted  in  every  way,  for  it  would  be  followed  by 
all  the  other  Orders/ 

The  Suprema  continued  to  treat  the  papal  briefs  as  surrep- 
titious and,  in  1658,  Arce  y  Reynoso  enjoyed  a  momentary 
triumph  in  a  contest  by  summoning  the  vicar-general  to  Madrid 
and  forcing  him  to  come.^  Under  the  feebler  government  of  the 
queen-regent,  his  successor  Nithard  was  not  so  fortunate,  in  a 
fierce  quarrel  which  involved  the  whole  island  in  confusion  and 
embroiled  the  rival  departments  of  the  government.  May  9, 
1667,  on  a  feast-day,  in  the  church  of  San  Francisco,  Don  Jorje 
Dameto  struck  his  son-in-law,  Don  Joseph  Vallejo,  with  a 
crutch,  causing  effusion  of  blood  and  thus  polluting  the  church. 
Both  gentlemen  were  familiars.  The  inquisitor,  before  noon-day, 
ordered  the  arrest  of  both;  in  the  afternoon  Bishop  Manjarre 
cited  Dameto  to  appear  for  sacrilege  and  violation  of  the  church. 
The  rival  jurisdictions  locked  horns  and  proceeded  to  extremities. 
The  viceroy  and  Audiencia,  with  the  bulk  of  the  community, 
sided  with  the  bishop,  but  disturbances  were  commencing  and 
they  repeatedly  urged  postponement  of  action  until  the  govern- 
ment could  be  heard  from,  but  the  inquisitor  refused.  The  bishop 
published  him  as  excommunicate,  anathematized  him  and  caused 
the  psalm  of  malediction  to  be  repeatedly  sung  against  him, 
but  the  inquisitor  continued  to  celebrate  mass,  exhibited  himself 
conspicuously  in  pubUc,  forbade  the  bishop  entrance  into  his 
own  church  and  threatened  to  suspend  his  sacerdotal  functions. 
On  August  29th  the  bishop  assembled  a  synod  where  arrangements 
were  made  to  send  an  envoy  to  Rome  to  prosecute  the  case,  with 
a  printed  statement  of  all  the  proceedings,  a  copy  of  which  was 
furnished  to  the  Council  of  Aragon. 

From  Madrid,  Nithard  imperiously  summoned  the  bishop  to 
appear  before  him  and  plead  his  case.  Under  the  canon  law,  the 
Inquisition  had  no  jurisdiction  over  bishops,  without  a  special 
delegation  of  papal  faculties,  and  Manjarre  was  justified  in  declar- 
ing the  summons  null  and  void.  Although,  as  an  ecclesiastical 
question,  the  Council  of  Aragon  had  no  direct  competence,  still 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  21,  fol.  346;  Lib.  52,  fol.  26,  37j 
Lib.  54,  fol.  64.— Bullar.  Roman.,  V,  367. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  52,  fol.  86. 


Chap.  IV]  TEE  SPIRITUAL  COURTS  501 

as  the  peace  of  Majorca  was  seriously  threatened  and  the  viceroy 
was  involved,  it  took  a  hand  in  the  matter  and  thus  were  pre- 
sented the  gravest  questions  with  regard  to  the  relations  of  the 
Inquisition  with  the  episcopate,  with  the  Holy  See,  and  with  the 
secular  authorities. 

Secure  in  the  blind  obedience  of  the  queen,  Nithard  adopted 
the  most  aggressive  attitude,  and  the  queen  submissively  did 
whatever  he  required,  for  he  assured  her  that  the  case  was  the 
most  serious  that  had  arisen  since  the  foundation  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion and  that,  on  its  rightful  decision,  depended  the  preservation 
or  extinction,  not  alone  of  the  Majorca  tribunal,  but  of  all  those 
under  the  crown  of  Aragon.  To  emphasize  this  he  summoned 
the  bishop  to  appear  before  him,  personally  or  by  procurator, 
within  a  term  designated,  in  default  of  which  he  would  be  prose- 
cuted in  contumacia.  To  this  the  queen,  in  October,  added  her 
commands  to  the  Council  of  Aragon;  as  the  preservation  of  the 
CathoHc  faith  required  the  maintenance  of  the  authority  of  the 
Inquisition,  the  Council  was  ordered  to  write  to  the  bishop  to 
comply  with  the  summons,  and  to  the  viceroy  to  assist  the  tribunal 
if  necessary;  the  bishop  must  not  appeal  to  Rome  and  if  he  had 
done  so  the  letters  must  be  intercepted  and  placed  in  her  hands. 

The  Council  of  Aragon  did  not  obey.  It  held  the  matter  until 
January  21,  1668,  when  it  presented  a  consulta  warning  the 
queen  of  the  consequences  of  her  action  and  pointing  out  that 
the  pope  was  the  sole  judge  of  bishops  in  important  cases,  as 
were  provincial  synods  in  trivial  matters.  Nithard,  however, 
was  superior  to  the  Council  of  Trent,  and  the  Suprema  commenced 
a  criminal  prosecution  of  Bishop  Manjarre,  while,  on  February 
5th,  an  answer  was  prepared  for  the  Council  of  Aragon,  couched 
in  a  tone  of  bitterness  and  scarcely  veiled  contempt,  which  showed 
how  fierce  were  the  passions  at  work.  The  queen  was  assured 
that  her  action  was  in  accordance  with  all  previous  royal  pro- 
visions and  she  was  asked  to  order  the  Council  of  Aragon  to  obey 
and  not  to  interfere  hereafter  with  ecclesiastical  controversies. 
Before  this  missive  was  delivered,  however,  news  came  from 
Majorca  that  the  culprit  Dameto  had  withdrawn  his  appeal  to 
the  tribunal  and  had  applied  for  absolution  to  the  bishop,  who 
considered  the  whole  matter  as  settled.  This  was  a  staggering 
blow  from  which  it  took  Nithard  a  month  to  recover,  but  finally 
he  sent  the  consulta  of  February  5th  with  a  postscript  of  March 
12th,  arguing  that  a  subject  cannot  impair  his  judge's  jurisdic- 


502  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  H 

tion  by  accepting  another  and  consequently  that  the  situation 
was  unaltered. 

The  queen  of  course  adopted  this  view  and  repeated  her 
orders,  but  again  the  Council  disobeyed  her  and  presented,  March 
18th,  a  consulta  adjuring  her  in  solemn  terms  to  reflect  calmly, 
for  she  was  making  the  inquisitor-general  a  judge  of  all  the  bishops 
in  her  dominions,  not  only  as  to  conflicts  of  jurisdiction  but  also 
as  to  criminal  accusations,  without  his  holding  faculties  from  the 
pope,  while,  at  the  same  time,  she  was  forbidding  appeals  to  the 
Holy  See  which  was  the  only  proper  judge.  She  was  warned  that 
it  was  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  the  questions 
at  issue  and  she  was  implored,  before  making  so  momentous  a 
decision,  to  consult  the  Councils  of  Castile,  Italy  and  the  Indies, 
for  the  interests  of  the  whole  monarchy  were  involved  as  well  as 
the  supreme  power  of  the  pope.  To  this  her  reply  was  merely 
a  repetition  of  her  former  orders  and  a  demand  for  a  duplicate 
of  the  letters  of  the  Council  to  the  Viceroy.  For  the  third  time 
it  disobeyed  her  and  sent  none  and  there  are  intimations  that  it 
was  engaged  in  arousing  the  whole  Spanish  episcopate  to  a  sense 
of  the  impending  danger. 

Then  the  affair  suddenly  assumed  another  phase.  On  March 
7th  the  queen  had  written  to  her  ambassador  in  Rome  to  procure 
the  abstention  of  the  pope  from  the  matter,  but,  on  that  very 
day,  the  Congregation  of  the  Inquisition,  with  the  approval  of 
the  pope,  had  pronounced  invalid  the  censures  fulminated  by  the 
inquisitor.  It  was  late  in  May  before  this  was  communicated 
to  the  queen  by  the  nuncio,  who  said  that  the  pope  had  recognized 
the  gravity  of  the  assault  by  an  inquisitor  on  the  episcopal  dignity 
and  the  magnitude  of  the  ensuing  scandal,  and  had  caused  the 
whole  subject  to  be  carefully  considered  by  the  Congregation 
with  the  above  result.  The  pope  had  felt  deeply,  not  only  the 
indignity  offered  to  the  episcopal  office,  but  also  that  the  fiscal 
of  the  Inquisition  had  applied  to  the  queen  to  summon  the  bishop 
before  it,  solely  on  the  ground  of  his  having  appealed  to  the  Holy 
See.  In  the  name  of  the  pope  the  nuncio  therefore  asked  the 
queen  to  order  inquisitors  not  to  proceed  against  bishops  and  to 
reject  the  application  of  the  fiscal. 

Even  this  did  not  shake  the  determination  of  Nithard  to  reduce 
the  episcopate  to  subjection.  A  long  and  argumentative  consulta 
was  presented  to  the  queen,  proving  that  the  papal  decision  was 
surreptitious  and  therefore  invalid,  and  that  anyhow  the  decrees 


Chap.  IV]  THE  SPIRITUAL  COURTS  603 

of  the  Roman  Inquisition  had  no  currency  in  Spain.  The  old 
prohibitions  of  appeals  to  Rome  were  invoked  and  the  queen 
was  told  that  one  of  the  most  precious  jewels  of  the  Spanish 
crown  was  at  stake,  for,  unless  the  regalias  were  preserved,  the 
Inquisition  must  disappear,  delinquents  would  be  unpunished, 
religion  would  suffer  and,  with  the  loss  of  its  unity,  there  would 
no  longer  be  obedience  to  the  throne.  The  queen  was  therefore 
urged  to  stand  firm;  the  prosecution  of  the  bishop  must  not  be 
suspended  and  the  Council  of  Aragon  must  be  forced  to  obey  the 
royal  commands. 

Nithard  was  ready  to  risk  an  open  breach  with  the  Holy  See 
in  his  audacious  ambition  to  render  the  Inquisition  supreme  in 
the  Spanish  Church.  How  far  the  queen  would  have  suffered 
herself  to  be  carried  in  the  execution  of  his  plans  cannot  be  told, 
as  the  documents  fail  us  here.  His  career,  however,  was  drawing 
to  a  close.  In  February,  1669,  he  was  driven  from  Spain  amid 
universal  execration,  yet  the  prosecution  of  Bishop  Manjarre  was 
not  abandoned,  for  the  Inquisition  was  not  accustomed  openly 
to  admit  defeat.  It  dragged  until  his  death,  December  26,  1670, 
when  it  was  quietly  dropped.^ 

Practically  the  intervention  of  Rome  gave  the  victory  to  the 
Mallorquins,  of  which  they  took  advantage.  In  1671  there  arose 
another  quarrel  over  a  fine  incurred  by  a  canon  who  was  also  a 
consultor  of  the  tribunal.  Both  sides  exchanged  excommuni- 
cations and  Inquisitor-general  Valladares,  profiting  by  his  pre- 
decessor's experience,  showed  moderation.  On  the  plea  that 
it  was  a  matter  of  government  rather  than  of  jurisdiction,  the 
Suprema  ordered  the  tribunal  to  abandon  the  case  and  remove 
the  censures  imposed  on  the  canons,  but  the  latter  were  not 
content  with  this  and  procured  from  the  Roman  Holy  Office  a 
decree  declaring  invalid  the  censures  of  the  inquisitors  and  valid 
those  of  the  executors  of  the  brief.  The  Council  of  Aragon  com- 
municated this  to  the  queen  who  submissively  signed  a  letter, 
January  25,  1672,  to  the  chapter,  expressing  her  confidence  that 
in  its  use  they  would  pay  fitting  attention  to  the  peace  and 
advantage  of  the  Church.^ 

The  Inquisition  was  not  accustomed  to  defeat  and  it  chafed 
under  this,  as  was  shown  when,  in  1690,  a  quarrel  arose  because 

1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  25,  fol.  23,  54,  86-105;  Lib.  52,  fol. 
53,  86,  92,  100,  125,  335. 

2  Ibidem,  Lib.  52,  fol.  335. 


504  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

a  priest  of  Minorca,  named  Juan  Bruells,  used  insulting  words 
to  the  commissioner,  Rafael  Pons.  For  this  he  was  prosecuted 
and  the  case  threw  all  the  islands  into  confusion.  The  viceroy, 
the  Audiencia  and  the  clergy  all  united  against  the  Inquisition. 
The  Ordinary  of  Minorca,  as  executor  of  the  brief  of  1642,  forcibly 
released  Bruells,  forbade  the  inquisitor  to  proceed  and,  on  his 
disobeying,  excommunicated  him.  About  this  time  the  Mal- 
lorquin  tribunal  had  claims  to  consideration  arising  from  its 
vigorous  proceedings  against  Judaizers  and  the  large  resultant 
confiscations.  The  Suprema  espoused  its  cause  with  the  usual 
energy  and,  in  repeated  consultas  to  Carlos  III,  denounced  the 
papal  briefs  as  surreptitious  and  invalid,  full  of  defects  and  nulli- 
ties. The  feeble  king  issued  repeated  commands  for  the  prose- 
cution of  Bruells  and  the  surrender  of  the  briefs,  but  no  one  paid 
attention  to  them.  The  Mallorquin  clergy  procured  from  the 
Congregation  of  the  Inquisition  a  decree  validating  the  censures 
pronounced  by  the  Ordinary  and  annulling  those  of  the  inquisitor ; 
the  pope  confirmed  this  but  subsequently  suspended  it  at  the 
earnest  solicitation  of  the  Spanish  ambassador,  at  the  same  time 
ordering  his  nuncio  to  make  the  king  understand  that  the  Con- 
gregation had  supreme  power  to  decide  all  questions  of  jurisdic- 
tion. The  affair  did  not  result  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion for  the  last  we  hear  of  it  is  a  bitter  complaint  by  the  Suprema, 
March  11,  1693,  of  the  contumacious  Mallorquins  and  the  miser- 
able condition  to  which  they  had  reduced  the  Inquisition.  In 
Minorca,  the  clergy  and  their  dependents  were  so  hostile  that 
Pons  could  not  find  a  church  in  which  to  celebrate  mass,  while 
the  officials  were  shunned  as  excommunicated  heretics.* 

Another  jurisdiction  with  which  there  were  occasional  quarrels 
was  that  of  the  army,  for  soldiers  were  exempt  from  the  secular 
courts.  In  such  competencias  settlements  were  made  by  a  junta 
of  two  members  each  of  the  Suprema  and  the  Council  of  War, 
with  final  reference  to  the  king  in  case  of  disagreement.  I  have 
happened  to  meet  with  but  few  cases  of  this  and  they  seem  never 
to  have  attained  the  importance  of  those  with  the  secular  and 
ecclesiastical  courts.  One  occurred  in  1629,  arising  from  disputes 
with  the  garrison  that  had  occupied  the  Aljaferia  since  the  troubles 
of  1591.    A  somewhat  curious  case  was  that  of  Don  Fernando 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  52,  fol.  292,  312,  335. 


Chap.  IV]  MILITARY  ORDERS  505 

Antonio  Herrera  Calderon,  of  Santander,  who  was  alguazil  and 
familiar  and  who  resigned,  in  1641,  from  his  mihtary  company, 
although  warned  that,  by  so  doing  during  hostihties,  he  would  be 
tried  by  the  Council  of  War.  It  naturally  claimed  him  and  the 
Suprema  endeavored  to  protect  him/  It  would  seem  that,  towards 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  exemption  of  the  military 
was  causing  special  troubles,  for  a  royal  cedula  of  February  9, 
1793,  declares  that,  to  put  an  end  to  them,  in  future  the  military 
judges  shall  have  exclusive  cognizance  of  all  cases,  civil  and 
criminal,  in  which  soldiers  are  defendants,  except  inheritances, 
and  that  no  tribunal  or  judge  of  any  kind  shall  form  a  competencia 
concerning  them  under  any  pretext.^ 

There  was  yet  another  independent  jurisdiction  with  which  the 
Inquisition  occasionally  came  into  colUsion.  In  Spain  the  Mili- 
tary Ordeifs  formed  so  important  a  body  that,  among  the  State 
Councils,  there  was  one  of  Orders,  which  had  exclusive  jurisdiction 
over  their  members.  It  will  be  recalled  that  one  of  Ferdinand's 
most  efficient  measures  to  ensure  the  peace  of  the  kingdom  was 
to  obtain  the  perpetual  administration  of  those  of  Santiago, 
Calatrava  and  Alcantara,  while  the  queen  assumed  that  of  Mon- 
tesa.  Yet  he  was  not  disposed  to  favor  their  claims  of  exemp- 
tion in  temporal  matters  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition. 
A  letter  of  September  15,  1515,  to  the  tribunal  of  Jaen,  says  that 
certain  confiscations  involve  property  held  by  knights  of  the 
three  Orders  who  may  claim  exemption  and  refuse  to  plead  before 
the  judge  of  confiscations;  if  so  they  are  not  to  be  listened  to  and, 
if  necessary,  are  to  be  prosecuted  with  the  full  rigor  of  the  law.^ 

In  civil  and  criminal  matters  the  members  of  the  Orders 
asserted  exemption  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition,  lead- 
ing to  disputes  more  or  less  acrimonious.  In  1609,  at  Cordova, 
Don  Diego  de  Argote,  a  Knight  of  Santiago,  with  levelled  pistol, 
prevented  the  arrest  of  one  of  his  servants  by  officials  of  the 
tribunal.  A  competencia  resulted  which,  when  carried  up  to 
Philip  III,  was  decided  by  him  in  favor  of  the  Council  of  Orders. 
To  this  the  Suprema  replied  in  a  consul  ta,  fortelhng  the  entire 
destruction  of  the  Inquisition  in  case  the  decision  was  allowed  to 
stand  and  so  worked  on  Philip  that  he  reversed  his  decree  and 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  940,  fol.  161;  Lib.  21,  fol.  300. 
2  Ibidem,  Legajo  1473.  '  Ibidem,  Lib.  3,  fol.  425. 


506  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

allowed  the  Suprema  to  prosecute  the  culprit.^  The  compUca- 
tion  caused  by  these  class  privileges  is  illustrated  in  the  case 
alluded  to  above,  occurring  in  1648,  at  Cuenca,  of  Munoz  de 
Castilblanque  for  the  murder  of  the  priest  Jacinto.  He  was  a 
Knight  of  Calatrava  which  led  to  an  additional  competencia, 
when  the  junta  could  not  agree  and  the  king  had  to  decide.^ 

In  their  contests  with  the  Orders,  the  tribunals  were  apt  to 
exhibit  the  same  unscrupulous  spirit  as  in  those  with  other  con- 
testants. In  Majorca  Doctor  Ramon  Sureda,  canon,  chancellor 
and  judge  of  competencias,  was  likewise  conservator  of  the  Mili- 
tary Orders.  In  1657  he  complained  that,  in  conflicts  of  jurisdic- 
tion, the  inquisitor  would  not  form  competencias  with  him  in 
order  that  the  papers  might  take  the  regular  course  of  transmis- 
sion for  settlement  by  the  Suprema  and  Council  of  Orders.  The 
king  and  queen  therefore,  as  administrators  of  the  Orders,  in- 
structed him  in  such  case  to  send  to  the  inquisitor  three  successive 
messages  and  report  them  and  their  replies  to  the  Council ;  if,  in 
spite  of  this,  the  tribunal  continued  to  prosecute  the  case,  he  was 
to  proceed  against  the  inquisitor  and  the  viceroy  was  to  render 
him  all  proper  support.  The  inquisitor  ingeniously  evaded  this  in 
the  case  of  Caspar  Puygdorfiho,  a  Knight  of  Santiago,  in  1661,  by 
refusing  to  receive  any  messages,  saying  that  he  received  them 
only  from  the  viceroy.  Sureda's  report  of  this  was  left  unnoticed 
and  the  inquisitor  adopted  the  same  device,  in  1662,  in  the  case 
of  Francisco  de  Veri,  a  Knight  of  Montesa,  prosecuted  for  wound- 
ing a  familiar  who  had  drawn  a  sword  upon  him.  He  refused  to 
receive  messages  and  proceeded  to  sequestrate  Veri's  property, 
including  his  crops  and  cattle.  To  save  them  from  destruction 
the  viceroy  interposed  and  the  Council  of  Orders  appealed  to  the 
queen,  as  administrator  of  the  Order,  to  take  some  action  that 
should  enable  such  questions  to  be  settled  peaceably,  but  appar- 
ently without  result.^ 

As  though  the  exempted  classes  were  not  numerous  and 
troublesome  enough,  there  was  a  project,  in  1574,  of  adding 
another  which,  if  carried  into  effect,  would  have  altered  the 
destiny  of  Spain  by  subjecting  it  eventually  to  the  Inquisition 
and  reducing  the  nominal  monarch  to  the  position  of  a  roi  faineant 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  927,  fol.  323. 
^  Ibidem,  Lib.  940,  fol.   161. 
»  Ibidem,  Lib.  52,  fol.  222. 


Chap.  IV]  MILITARY  ORDERS  507 

under  a  Mayor  of  the  Palace.  It  is  a  most  impressive  illustration 
of  the  spirit  of  the  age  that  such  a  project  should  have  been 
formulated,  that  it  received  enthusiastic  support  and  that  a 
sovereign  so  jealous  of  his  prerogative  as  Philip  II  should  have 
even  allowed  it  to  be  debated,  much  less  have  let  it  assume  a 
menacing  shape  and  have  given  it  serious  consideration,  A 
Military  Order  was  to  be  established  under  the  name  of  Santa 
Maria  de  la  Espada  Blanca,  with  a  white  sword  as  a  symbol, 
like  the  red  sword  of  Santiago.  At  its  head  was  to  be  the  inquis- 
itor-general, to  whom  all  members  were  to  swear  allegiance  and 
whose  orders  in  peace  and  war  all  were  to  obey.  To  him  likewise 
they  were  to  assign  their  property,  receiving  back  at  his  hands 
what  was  necessary  for  their  support,  and  after  death  their  widows 
were  to  be  pensioned  by  him.  They  were  to  be  exempt  from  all 
jurisdiction  save  his,  which  was  to  be  delegated  to  priors  ap- 
pointed in  all  the  provinces.  The  ostensible  object  was  the 
defence  of  the  faith  and  of  Spain,  for  which  they  were  at  any  time 
liable  to  be  called  to  the  field,  or  to  serve  in  garrison,  under  the 
orders  of  the  inquisitor-general.  Thus  the  Inquisition  was  to  be 
furnished  with  an  organized  force,  sworn  to  blind  obedience  and 
released  from  all  other  obligations.  The  only  requisite  for  member- 
ship was  limpieza,  or  purity  of  blood,  free  from  all  taint  of  Judaic 
or  Moorish  contamination,  or  descent  from  those  who  had  been 
sentenced  for  heresy.  At  this  period  limpieza  was  becoming  a 
popular  mania;  the  cost  of  proving  it  through  four  generations 
was  considerable,  and  there  was  strong  temptation  in  the  promise 
that  the  expenses  of  all  applicants  would  be  defrayed  from  the 
common  fund. 

The  project  may  seem  to  us  too  wild  to  merit  a  thought,  but 
it  responded  so  perfectly  to  the  temper  of  the  time  that  it  was 
enthusiastically  adopted  by  the  provinces  of  Castile,  Leon,  Biscay, 
Navarre,  Aragon,  Valencia,  Catalonia,  Asturias  and  Galicia. 
Procurators  from  these  provinces  submitted  it  to  Philip  for  his 
approval  and  were  supported  by  representatives  of  forty-eight 
noble  houses  and  of  the  archiepiscopal  sees  of  Toledo,  Santiago, 
Seville,  Saragossa,  Valencia,  Tarragona  and  Granada.  It  was 
debated  earnestly  and  at  much  length,  but  the  argument  of  Pedro 
Vinegas  de  Cordova  decided  its  fate.  He  pointed  out  the  troubles 
which  were  already  arising  on  the  subject  of  limpieza,  causing 
jealousies,  hatreds  and  contentions,  to  be  increased  enormously 
if  the  population  was  thus  to  be  divided  into  two  classes :  also  the 


508  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

fact  that  the  royal  courts  would  have  left  to  their  jurisdiction 
only  the  New  Christians,  while  the  Old  Christians  would  have 
their  special  judges  and,  if  the  comparatively  few  existing  famil- 
iars caused  such  all-pervading  troubles,  what  the  effect  would  be 
of  increasing  without  limit  the  number  of  the  exempt.  On  the  one 
hand  the  ambitious  and  able  men  among  the  New  Christians, 
being  thus  cast  out,  would  foment  disaffection  and  cUsturbance; 
on  the  other,  if  the  old  Military  Orders  had  been  a  source  of 
danger  to  the  monarchy,  what  would  be  the  effect  of  creating 
a  new  one,  united  and  vastly  more  numerous  and  subject  as 
vassals  to  an  inquisitor-general,  whose  power  was  already  so 
great,  and  who  would  control  the  property  and  have  jurisdiction 
over  all  members,  while  in  case  of  rebellion  the  frontiers  and 
strongholds  would  be  in  his  hands?  This  reasoning  was  unanswer- 
able; Philip  ordered  all  papers  connected  with  the  project  to  be 
surrendered;  he  imposed  perpetual  silence  on  its  advocates  and 
wrote  to  the  ecclesiastical  and  secular  bodies  to  abandon  it,  for 
justice  and  protection  would  never  be  lacking/ 

We  shall  probably  do  no  injustice  to  the  Inquisition  in  attribut- 
ing to  the  profits  accruing  from  the  exercise  of  its  temporal 
jurisdiction  the  ruthless  vigor  with  which  the  tribunals  sought 
to  vindicate  and  extend  it.  The  remarks  of  the  Visitor  Cer- 
vantes with  regard  to  Barcelona,  in  1561  (p.  468),  inchoate  how 
lucrative  it  could  be  made  and  how  welcome  was  the  addition 
of  fees  and  fines  to  the  somewhat  meagre  salaries  of  the  officials. 
This  explains  the  reckless  violence  which  became  habitual  in  the 
conduct  of  quarrels,  because  this  not  only  was  an  assurance  to 
the  parties  concerned  as  to  the  vigor  with  which  they  were 
defended,  but  it  also  served  to  discourage  the  secular  authorities 
from  resisting  encroachments.  It  also  explains  the  multiplication 
of  the  unsalaried  officials  such  as  familiars,  commissioners  and 
their  notaries,  assessors,  deputies  etc.,  which  no  laws  or  Con- 
cordias  or  regulations  could  restrain,  for  each  one  was  a  possible 
source  of  profit  to  the  tribunal  and  a  probable  cause  of  disturb- 
ance in  his  vicinage,  through  the  comfortable  assurance  of 
immunity  from  the  law. 

The  natural  result  of  this  was  that  unprofitable  business  was 
neglected  for  profitable,  and  the  suppression  of  heresy  was  post- 
poned to  the  trial  of  civil  and  criminal  cases  which  yielded  fees. 

*  Cabrera,  Felipe  Segundo,  Lib.  X,  cap.  xviii. 


Chap.  IV]  EVILS  OF  THE  SYSTEM  509 

We  have  seen  how  Cervantes  reported  that  in  Barcelona  this 
seemed  to  be  the  real  duty  of  the  tribunal  and  that  there  was 
nothing  else  to  be  attended  to;  his  animadversions  produced  no 
amendment  and,  in  1567,  de  Soto  Salazar  repeated  the  complaint.^ 
This  continued  unchecked.  The  project  of  reform  presented  to 
the  Suprema,  in  1623,  expresses  the  wish  that  other  tribunals 
would  follow  the  example  of  Saragossa,  where  one  of  the  inquisi- 
tors was  delegated  every  four  months  to  conduct  this  business, 
so  that  prisoners  on  trial  for  heresy  could  have  their  cases 
despatched  and  not  be  kept  languishing  interminably  in  prison, 
which,  as  we  shall  see,  was  one  of  the  sorest  abuses  inflicted  on 
them.^  This  pious  wish  was  fruitless  and  the  records  of  the 
Inquisition  for  the  following  century  show  how  large  a  portion 
of  its  activity  was  devoted  to  these  cases  and  to  the  competencias 
incessantly  springing  from  them. 

One  feature  which  aggravated  the  oppression  in  these  matters, 
especially  in  civil  suits,  was  not  only  the  favoritism  which  inevi- 
tably inclined  the  tribunal  to  the  side  of  its  own  people,  but  the 
fact  that  the  inquisitors  were  usually  strangers,  unfamiliar  with 
the  local  laws  and  customs  peculiar  to  each  province,  which  they 
presumed  to  interpret  and  enforce.  This  justified  the  frequent 
demands  that  inquisitors  should  be  natives — demands  which 
received  no  attention,  for  the  appointing  power  thought  only  of 
their  qualifications  as  judges  of  the  faith  while,  to  the  mass  of 
the  population,  their  duties  in  this  respect  were  of  small  account 
in  comparison  with  their  activity  in  their  temporal  jurisdiction. 
Another  well-grounded  source  of  complaint  was  that  the  inquisi- 
torial habits  of  secrecy  could  not  be  wholly  overcome ;  the  parties 
and  their  counsel  were  not  allowed  to  be  present,  as  in  the  royal 
courts;  witnesses  were  examined  by  the  inquisitor  on  lists  of 
interrogatories  furnished  to  him,  and  there  was  no  cross-exami- 
nation; written  arguments  were  presented  to  him  which  he  handed 
to  the  other  side  for  reply  and  the  procedure,  in  both  civil  and 
criminal  cases,  was  assimilated  as  nearly  as  might  be  to  the  secret 
trials  for  heresy  which  was  the  inquisitorial  ideal  of  the  dispensa- 
tion of  justice.  The  cases  were  decided  by  the  inquisitors  in 
session  together,  on  a  majority  vote.  In  the  sixteenth  century 
there  was  no  appeal  to  the  Suprema,  even  when  the  vote  was 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  1,  20. 
'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  926,  fol.  19. — Archivo  hist,  nacional, 
Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  1. 


510  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

not  unanimous,  but,  in  1645,  a  writer  assumes  that  either  side 
could  appeal.^ 

We  have  seen  how  tenaciously  the  kingdoms  of  Aragon  struggled 
against  the  evils  of  the  system.  Castile  felt  them  equally  but  it 
had  not  the  same  institutions  and  could  only  remonstrate.  The 
Cortes  of  Madrid,  in  1607-8,  represented  that  those  of  1579  and 
1586  had  petitioned  for  the  reform  of  the  abuses  arising  from  the 
temporal  juriscUction  of  the  Inquisition  to  the  great  injury  of 
the  kingdom;  that  Philip  II  had  promised  relief,  but  had  died 
without  granting  it,  and  therefore  the  request  was  now  repeated 
in  view  of  the  increasing  evils.  Especially  was  attention  called 
to  the  cruelty  of  imprisoning  ordinary  offenders,  for  the  people 
could  not  distinguish  and  imagined  all  prisoners  to  be  heretics, 
thus  entailing  infamy  upon  them  and  disqualifying  them  for 
marriage,  wherefore  it  was  asked  that  they  be  confined  in  the 
public  gaols.  Philip  III  promised  to  do  what  was  proper  and 
of  course  did  nothing.  The  Cortes  of  1611  repeated  the  petition, 
with  similar  lack  of  result.^ 

The  Council  of  Castile,  the  highest  tribunal  in  the  land,  in  a 
consulta  of  1631,  represented  forcibly  the  existing  evils,  espe- 
cially the  prodigal  use  of  censures  under  which  corregidores  and 
other  magistrates  lay  under  excommunication  for  months  together, 
while  individuals  were  impoverished  by  the  long  delays  in  settling 
competencias.  It  urged  the  remedy  of  permitting  appeals  to  the 
Council  por  via  de  fuerza,  in  cases  not  of  faith  and  this  it  repeated 
in  1634,  1669  and  1682.^  More  outspoken  was  a  memorial  pre- 
sented, in  1648,  to  Philip  by  a  member  of  the  Council,  on  the 
abuses  of  the  criminal  jurisdiction,  those  in  civil  cases  being 
treated  in  a  separate  paper.  The  writer  alludes  to  having  re- 
peatedly made  the  same  representations  orally  and  in  writing; 
he  dwells  upon  the  interminable  delays  and  other  obstacles  which 
impede  justice  and  discourage  sufferers  from  seeking  it.  The 
resultant  immunity  creates  audacious  criminals;  the  number  of 
familiars  and  of  soldiers  who  never  serve  in  the  field  has  increased 
so  greatly  that  nothing  is  seen  but  crimes  and  the  offenders  are 
unpunished.     Everywhere  men  of  the  most  dissolute  type  and 


»  Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  31-9,  86-97  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  122).— Archive 
hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  365,  n.  45. — Archive  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,  Lib.  926,  fol.  23.— Rojas  de  Hreret.  P.  i,  n.  442. 

^  Llorente,  Hist.  crft.  Cap.  xxvii,  Art.  1.  n.  3,  4. 

'  Consulta  Magna  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Q,  4). 


Chap.  IV]  EVILS  OF  THE  SYSTEM  511 

the  largest  fortunes  seek  appointment  so  as  to  enjoy  immunity; 
the  royal  revenues  are  defrauded  and  prohibited  goods  are 
imported,  while  no  corregidor  or  alcalde  dares  to  curb  them,  for 
they  are  at  once  excommunicated  by  the  inquisitors,  even  to 
casting  interdicts  over  whole  communities.  Those  who  suffer 
remain  without  redress,  so  that  those  who  are  able  are  led  to  take 
it  into  their  own  hands,  for  they  can  get  it  nowhere  else.  Justice 
is  trampled  under  foot;  there  is  no  alguazil  who  dares  to  make 
an  arrest,  or  scrivener  to  draw  up  papers,  so  many  have  been 
slain  or  wounded  for  so  doing  and  the  death  of  an  alguazil  is  held 
at  naught,  as  though  the  officers  of  justice  were  common  enemies. 
If  the  king  would  re-establish  the  jurisdiction  of  the  royal  courts 
there  would  be  an  end  to  the  excommunications  with  which  the 
inquisitors  defend  their  delinquents,  as  though  they  were  vessels 
of  the  Temple;  the  time  of  the  Councils  and  of  the  king  would 
not  be  consumed  by  these  perpetual  competencias  and  the 
plagues  would  cease  wherewith  God  afflicts  these  kingdoms  for 
the  injustice,  the  violence  and  the  dissolute  life  of  the  people.^ 

These  warnings  and  remonstrances  fell  on  deaf  ears.  The 
Suprema  was  skilled  to  work  upon  the  piety  of  the  king,  and  to 
promise  him  relief  from  perils  if  he  would  placate  God  by  increas- 
ing the  privileges  of  the  Inquisition,  the  very  existence  of  which 
depended  upon  its  abihty  to  protect  its  familars  from  the  law  and 
from  the  universal  hatred  in  which  they  were  held. 

After  the  fall  of  Inquisitor-general  Nithard,  there  was  a  bustling 
attempt  to  check  the  enormous  evils  admitted  to  exist.  In  1677 
Carlos  II  deprecated  the  abuses  common,  both  in  excessive  charges 
and  in  forcing  his  pious  subjects  to  submit  by  censures  which 
deprived  them  of  the  consolations  of  religion.  He  declared 
excommunication  to  be  illegal  in  matters  connected  exclusively 
with  laymen  and  temporal  possessions,  and  forbade  its  employ- 
ment, a  command  which  he  addresed  to  the  Suprema  in  1678 
with  directions  to  enforce  it  and  which  he  repeated  in  1691,  but 
without  effect.^  Then  a  more  comprehensive  effort  was  made  to 
effect  a  radical  reform.  In  1696,  Carlos  was  induced  to  assemble 
what  was  known  as  the  Junta  Magna,  consisting  of  two  members 
each  of  the  Councils  of  State,  of  Aragon,  of  Castile,  of  Italy,  of 
Indies  and  of  Orders.    The  decree  creating  it  recites  the  disturb- 

>  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  188. 

^  Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  iv,  Tit.  1,  Auto  4,  cap.  13,  14,  18. — Novfs  Recop. 
Lib.  II,  Tit.  vii,  ley  5. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  1465,  fol.  99. 


512  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

ance  and  interference  with  justice,  the  continual  colHsions  and 
competencias  between  the  Inquisition  and  the  courts  over  ques- 
tion of  jurisdiction  and  privileges,  and  the  necessity  of  establishing 
some  fixed  principles  and  rules  to  avert  these  troubles  for  the 
future  and  to  preserve  the  Holy  Office  in  the  love  and  reverence 
of  the  people,  without  its  interfering  in  matters  foreign  to  its 
venerable  purpose.  The  Junta  was  to  meet  at  least  once  a  week 
and  it  was  furnished  with  materials  from  the  records  of  all  the 
Councils,  through  which  it  obtained  a  thorough  insight  into  the 
evils  to  be  remedied.  These  labors  resulted  in  a  memorial  known 
as  the  Consulta  Magna,  drawn  up  by  Doctor  Joseph  de  Ledesma 
of  the  Council  of  Castile. 

It  constituted  a  terrible  indictment  of  the  abuse,  by  the  Inquisi- 
tion, of  the  temporal  jurisdiction  bestowed  on  it  by  the  sovereigns, 
with  ample  proof  of  flagrant  cases  and  incidents.  Then  followed 
a  consideration  of  possible  remedies,  of  which  the  most  indis- 
pensable was  declared  to  be  the  prohibition  of  censures,  which 
were  so  formidable  that  no  one  could  resist  them.  Persons 
arrested  for  offences  not  of  faith  should  be  confined  in  the  royal 
prisons  to  save  them  from  the  indelible  disgrace  of  the  secret 
prison.  The  recurso  de  fuerza  should  be  admitted  when  excom- 
munication was  used  in  temporal  cases.  The  fuero  should  be 
withdrawn  from  the  servants  and  commensals  of  officials  whose 
insolence  gave  occasion  to  arrests  and  censures  causing  dissen- 
sions that  scandalized  the  whole  kingdom.  It  was  admitted  that 
familiars  now  gave  little  trouble,  save  in  Majorca,  where  there 
was  no  Concordia,  but  the  salaried  officials  were  the  source  of 
infinite  contention  and  they  should  be  put  on  the  footing  of 
familiars.  A  grievance  of  the  greatest  magnitude  was  the  inter- 
minable delay  in  the  settlement  of  competencias,  during  which 
prisoners  languished  in  confinement  and  excommunicates  could 
not  obtain  absolution;  this  could  be  averted  if  the  Concordias  and 
royal  orders  were  enforced.  As  all  attempts  to  curb  the  Inquisi- 
tion had  proved  useless,  and  in  spite  of  them  it  had  continually 
increased  its  abuses,  the  ultimate  remedy  of  depriving  it  wholly 
of  the  royal  jurisdiction  might  be  found  necessary,  but  mean- 
while these  milder  measures  might  be  tried  in  hope  of  relief.^ 
These  proposed  remedies,  it  will  be  seen,  were  moderate  enough 

*  I  am  not  aware  that  this  interesting  document  has  been  printed.  There  are 
copies  of  it  in  the  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Q,  4,  and  G,  344,  and  in  the  Library  of 
the  University  of  Halle,  Yc,  17. 


Chap.  IV]  EVILS  OF  THE  SYSTEM  513 

and  in  no  way  limited  the  Inquisition  in  its  ostensible  functions 
as  the  preserver  of  the  faith. 

This  was  the  most  formidable  assault  that  the  Inquisition  had 
experienced,  coming  as  it  did  from  the  combined  forces  of  all  the 
other  organizations  of  the  State,  under  the  auspices  of  the  king, 
but  it  was  easily  averted.  Llorente  tells  us  that  Inquisitor-general 
Rocaberti,  working  through  the  royal  confessor  Froilan  Diaz,  who 
was  ex-officio  a  member  of  the  Suprema,  and  also  Rocaberti's 
subject  in  the  Dominican  Order,  succeeded  in  inducing  Carlos  to 
consign  the  consulta  to  the  limbo  in  which  reposed  so  many 
previous  memorials.*  The  manner  in  which  this  was  effected  was 
simple  enough.  In  1726  Don  Santiago  Augustin  Riol  drew  up 
for  Philip  V  a  report  on  the  creation  and  organization  of  the 
state  councils,  in  which  he  states  that  the  consulta  was  submitted 
to  the  Council  of  Castile  for  its  action;  this  was  delayed  by  the 
illness  of  the  governor  of  the  Council;  when  he  returned  to  duty 
the  matter  was  forgotten  and  the  consulta  disappeared  so  com- 
pletely that,  when  Philip  V  called  for  it,  in  1701,  no  copy  could 
be  found  in  the  archives,  as  appeared  from  a  certificate  furnished 
by  the  archivist.^ 

This  narrow  escape  did  not  teach  moderation.  In  1702  the 
Valencia  tribunal  refused  even  to  join  in  a  competencia  over  a 
case  in  which  it  entertained  a  suit  brought  to  collect  the  interest 
on  a  censo,  by  the  widow  of  an  alguazil  mayor  as  guardian  of  her 
children.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  regent  of  the  Audiencia  pointed 
out  that,  under  the  Concordia  of  1568,  the  widow  of  an  official 
only  enjoyed  the  fuero  as  defendant  and  not  as  plaintiff  and  that 
the  children  had  no  claim  whatever,  and  cited  precedents  that 
had  been  so  decided;  the  tribunal  was  stubborn  and  would  not 
even  admit  that  the  question  could  be  carried  up  to  the  Suprema 
and  Council  of  Aragon  for  decision.^  It  was  not  long  after  this, 
however,  that  the  Suprema  was  obliged  to  admit  that  reforms 
in  the  methods  of  the  Holy  Office  were  essential.  In  its  carta 
acordada  of  June  27,  1705,  is  embodied  a  rebuke  of  the  reckless- 
ness with  which  the  tribunals  undertook  the  defence  of  their 
officials,  resulting  in  the  universal  complaints  of  the  abuse  of  its 
jurisdiction,  so  that  it  was  popularly  said  that  everything  was 

*  Llorente,  Hist.  crit.  Cap.  xxvi,  Art.  ii,  n.  35;  Cap.  xxxix,  Art.  ii,  n.  17. 

*  Riol,   Informe  (Semanario  enidito,  III,   157). 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  3,  fol.  16, 

33 


514  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

made  a  caso  de  Inquisicion,  to  the  disrepute  of  its  officials  and  their 
families.  Therefore,  unless  the  jurisdiction  was  indisputable,  the 
Suprema  must  be  consulted  before  assuming  the  defence,  amicable 
adjustments  must  always  be  sought  and  friendly  relations  be 
maintained  with  the  royal  officials,  thus  avoiding  competencias 
which  ordinarily  arose  from  passionate  conflicts  over  trifles/ 

These  were  wise  admonitions  to  which  as  usual  scant  attention 
was  paid,  but  in  time  the  tribunals  were  made  to  recognize  the 
change  which  had  come  in  with  the  Bourbons.  There  was  a 
highly  illustrative  case  in  1720,  at  Toledo,  where  Don  Pedro 
Paniagua,  contador  or  aucUtor  of  the  tribunal,  received  in  October 
twenty  sacks  of  cocoa  from  Cadiz.  In  the  intricate  details  of 
the  Spanish  system  of  internal  imposts,  it  would  be  impossible 
now  to  say  whether  he  had  observed  the  formalities  requisite  in 
the  transmission  of  merchandise,  but  the  local  authorities  assumed 
that  there  was  a  violation  of  law  and  also  an  infraction  of  quaran- 
tine, imposed  in  August,  owing  to  an  epidemic  in  Marseilles. 
The  corregidor  was  prompt;  at  2  a.m.  of  the  day  following  the 
arrival  of  the  cocoa,  he  searched  Paniagua's  country  house  and 
at  9  A.M.  his  town  house  and  sequestrated  the  cocoa.  The  inquisi- 
tors responded  by  imprisoning  the  civic  guards  who  had  been 
employed.  A  fortnight  later,  another  visit  paid  to  Paniagua's 
house  showed  that  five  sacks  of  the  sequestrated  article  had  been 
removed,  whereupon  he  was  confined  in  the  royal  prison.  Then 
the  inquisitors  proceeded  against  the  corregidor  and  alcalde 
mayor  with  censures,  and  aggravated  them  so  energetically  that 
in  twenty-four  hours  they  had  an  intercUct  and  cessatio  a  divinis 
in  four  parishes  of  the  city.  These  active  demonstrations,  how- 
ever suited  to  the  seventeenth  century,  were  out  of  place  in  the 
eighteenth.  As  soon  as  news  of  them  reached  Madrid,  hurried 
orders  were  despatched  by  the  Suprema  to  remove  the  interdict, 
absolve  the  officials  and  release  the  guards,  and  when  the  formal 
report  came  from  the  tribunal  the  orders  were  repeated,  with 
the  addition  that  the  senior  inquisitor  should  start  for  Madrid 
within  twenty-four  hours.  Prior  to  receiving  this  the  inquisitors 
had  written  to  Inquisitor-general  Camargo  lamenting  his  abandon- 
ment of  them  and  the  chshonor  inflicted  on  the  tribunal;  they 
blushed  to  be  accomplices  in  this  ruin  and  they  tendered  their 
resignations.  The  answer  to  this  was  sending  the  senior  Inquisi- 
tor of  Madrid  to  take  charge  of  the  tribunal,  with  orders  to  the 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  10,  n.  2,  fol.  178. 


Chap.  IV]  CURTAILMENT  OF  PRIVILEGES  51 5 

two  remaining  inquisitors  to  report  in  Madrid  but,  on  learning 
that  they  had  obeyed  the  first  orders,  they  were  allowed  to  remain 
in  Toledo. 

How  strong  had  been  the  pressure  exerted  on  the  Suprema  to 
produce  this  action  may  be  inferred  from  a  protest  in  which,  a 
month  later,  it  poured  forth  to  Philip  V  its  bitterness  of  soul. 
The  corregidor  had  violated  the  privileges  and  immunities  of 
the  Inquisition;  the  inquisitors  had  been  perfectly  justified  in 
their  action,  although  too  speedy  in  aggravating  the  censures; 
they  had  been  humiliated,  while  the  corregidor  and  his  underlings 
were  boasting  of  their  triumph  over  the  Inquisition  and  of  depriv- 
ing it  of  the  rights  granted  by  the  popes  and  the  kings  of  Spain. 
The  Suprema  therefore  asked  that  the  senior  inquisitor  be  allowed 
to  return  to  Toledo,  that  Paniagua  be  released  by  the  hands  of 
the  inquisitors,  that  his  cocoa  be  restored  and  that  the  corregidor 
and  alcalde  mayor  be  duly  punished.  This  accomplished  nothing 
and  two  months  later  it  again  appealed  to  the  king  for  the  release 
of  Paniagua  and  the  restoration  of  the  senior  inquisitor,  but  this 
time  it  professed  its  zeal  to  see  that  in  future  the  tribunals  should 
practise  more  moderation.^  The  lesson  was  a  hard  one,  but  it 
had  a  still  harder  one,  in  1734,  when  Philip  decided  that  a  salaried 
official  should  be  tried  by  the  ordinary  courts.^ 

Step  by  step  the  old-time  privileges  were  being  curtailed.  Soon 
after  the  accession  of  Fernando  \T,  some  trouble  arose  at  Llerena 
over  the  taxation  of  familiars.  It  seems  to  have  been  aggravated 
in  the  usual  manner  and,  when  it  reached  the  king,  it  was  of  a 
character  that  induced  him  to  issue  a  decree,  October  5,  1747,  by 
which  the  Council  of  Castile  was  given  jurisdiction  over  the 
officials  of  the  Inquisition.  This  called  forth  a  heated  remon- 
strance, dated  November  1st,  which  must  have  proceeded  from 
the  Inquisitor-general  Prado  y  Cuesta,  for  no  other  subject 
would  have  dared  thus  to  address  his  sovereign.  The  writer  tells 
him  that  the  decree  is  unworthy  of  his  name  and  his  faith,  nor  is  it 
well  that  the  world  should  see  him,  in  the  first  year  of  his  reign, 
discharge  such  a  thunderbolt  against  the  Holy  Office,  such  as  it 
had  never  received  since  its  foundation,  leaving  it  prostrated  by 
the  shock.  He  affirms  before  God,  and  would  wish  to  write  it  with 
his  blood,  that  the  service  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  prosperity  of 


»  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  R,  102,  fol.  147-60. 
*  Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  iv,  Tit.  i,  Gloss  1. 


516  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

the  king  and  his  kingdoms  require  that  the  decree  be  returned  to 
the  royal  hands,  without  a  copy  being  allowed  to  remain.^ 

Although  this  decree  was  not  effective  as  to  the  salaried  offi- 
cials, the  Inquisition  was  falling  upon  evil  days.  It  no  longer 
inspired  the  old-time  awe;  it  was  no  longer  striving  to  extend  its 
prerogatives,  but  was  fighting  a  losing  battle  to  maintain  them. 
A  writer  of  about  this  period  deplores  its  decadence;  its  commis- 
sioners and  familiars  serve  without  pay  and  the  only  reward  for 
their  labors  and  the  cost  of  making  their  proofs  of  limpieza  is 
the  exemptions  of  pure  honor  granted  by  the  kings,  but  now 
scarce  one  of  these  is  observed  and  no  fit  persons  seek  the  positions, 
although  they  are  much  needed,  for  there  are  not  a  tenth  part  of 
those  allowed  by  the  Concordias.^  There  is  probably  some  truth 
in  this,  for  Inquisitor-general  Prado  y  Cuesta,  in  appointing,  at 
the  request  of  the  tribunal  of  Valencia,  Fray  Vicente  Latorre  as 
calificador  or  censor,  asks  why,  when  there  are  so  many  learned 
canons  and  professors  in  Valencia,  who  formerly  were  eager  in 
seeking  the  position,  it  had  now  fallen  so  greatly  in  estima- 
tion.^ 

It  was  difficult  for  the  Inquisition  to  reconcile  itself  to  the 
tendencies  of  the  age  and  several  cases,  about  this  time,  in  which 
the  tribunal  of  Valencia  refused  even  to  admit  competencias, 
asserting  that  its  combined  ecclesiastical  and  royal  jurisdictions 
rendered  it  the  sole  judge  of  all  that  concerned  its  officials,  show 
that  the  old  spirit  still  lingered  and  found  expression  whenever 
it  dared.'*  Carlos  III,  however,  was  even  more  assertive  of  the 
royal  prerogative  than  his  brother  Fernando.  We  have  seen 
his  orders  of  1763  concerning  municipal  and  police  regulations 
which  included  the  prohibitions  of  carrying  concealed  weapons 
and  exporting  money,  in  all  of  which  familiars  were  wholly  re- 
moved from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition,  and  in  1775  a 
competencia  in  Cordova  caused  him  emphatically  to  order 
the  inviolable  observance  of  this  decree.^  All  this  led  to  the 
change  in  the  commissions  of  familiars  as  regards  carrying  arms, 
which  was  brought  about,  in  1777,  by  the  authorities  of  Alcala  la 
Real  and  Seville  refusing  to  register  commissions  issued  by  the 


'  Archive  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544*  (Libro  10). 

'  Ibidem,  Estado,  Leg.  2843. 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  14,  n.  3,  fol.  132. 

*  Ibidem,  Leg.  1,  n.  3,  fol.  3,  16 

•  Novls.  Recop.,  Lib.  ii,  Tit.  vii,  leyes  9,  10. 


Chap.  IV]  COMPETENCIAS  51 7 

tribunals  of  Toledo  and  Seville,  because  they  were  not  in  accord- 
ance with  the  new  regulations.  In  place,  as  of  old,  of  blustering 
and  coercing  the  magistrates,  the  Suprema  collected  from  all  the 
tribunals  the  formulas  employed  by  them  and  framed  a  new  one, 
phrased  in  a  very  different  spirit  and  in  accordance  with  the  royal 
edicts/ 

That  the  endless  quarrels  which  we  have  been  considering 
ought  to  be  settled  in  an  amicable  manner  was  so  self-evident 
that,  from  an  early  period,  persistent  efforts  had  been  made  to 
accomplish  it,  resulting  in  the  "competencia"  so  frequently 
alluded  to  above.  Originally  it  would  seem  that  there  was  no 
established  procedure  and  that  the  Inquisition  settled  for  itself 
all  questions  arising  with  the  magistrates.  After  the  first  opposi- 
tion had  been  broken  down  these  were  not  numerous,  until  the 
attribution  of  the  fuero  to  the  officials,  and  the  enormous  multi- 
plication of  familiars  and  other  unsalaried  officers,  gave  occasion 
for  collisions  with  the  courts.  The  earliest  attempt  that  I  have 
met  to  provide  a  method  of  settlement  is  a  cedula,  issued  about 
1535  by  the  empress-regent  in  the  absence  of  Charles  V,  ordering 
that,  when  there  was  a  dispute  about  jurisdiction,  the  president 
and  judges  of  the  royal  court  should  meet  the  inquisitors  and 
arrange  matters  harmoniously,  so  that  it  should  not  be  known 
that  there  had  been  a  difference  between  them.  It  was  in  con- 
formity with  this  that,  in  1542,  when  Joaquin  de  Tunes  was 
tried  in  Barcelona  for  the  murder  of  Juan  Ballell,  a  familiar,  the 
inquisitor,  Miguel  Puig,  held  a  conference  with  the  regent  and 
judges  of  the  royal  chancellery,  prior  to  the  arrest,  and  the 
custody  of  the  accused  was  settled  without  difficulty.  It  was 
impossible,  however,  to  preserve  peace  between  classes  mutually 
jealous,  and  we  have  seen  (p.  435)  the  troubles  which  Prince  Philip 
endeavored  to  settle  by  the  cedula  of  May  15,  1545.  This  favored 
the  royal  jurisdiction  and  produced  complaints  from  the  Suprema 
as  when,  in  1548,  it  represented  to  Charles  V  that  in  Granada 
the  judges  made  the  cedula  a  pretext  to  intervene  in  the  business 
of  the  tribunal,  whenever  any  one  made  a  complaint,  requiring 
the  inquisitors  to  interrupt  their  work  and  come  to  the  Audiencia, 
when  they  were  ordered  not  to  proceed  and,  if  this  was  disobeyed, 
the  judges  raised  a  great  disturbance.  All  this  would  cease  if 
the  old  rule  were  restored  that  any  one  feeling  aggrieved  must 

*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  15,  n.  11,  fol.  45. 


518  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

appeal  to  the  Suprema  where  he  would  get  justice/  Prince 
Philip's  cedula  of  1553  settled  this  as  far  as  concerned  matters 
of  faith,  but  neither  it  nor  the  Castilian  Concordia  of  the  same 
year  could  prevent  disputes  over  the  immunities  of  the  officials 
and  familiars  which  the  Inquisition  was  persistently  endeavoring 
to  extend.  The  Concorcha,  however,  endeavored  to  provide  for 
the  settlement  of  these  by  the  process  described  above  (p.  436) 
which  became  technically  known  as  competencia.  It  is  remark- 
able that,  in  the  Valencia  Concordia  of  1554,  there  is  no  such 
provision,  but  in  that  of  1568,  for  the  Aragonese  kingdoms,  it 
appears  in  the  slightly  different  form  that  the  regent  of  the 
Audiencia  and  the  senior  inquisitor  should  consult  and  endeavor 
to  come  to  some  agreement.  If  they  could  not  do  so,  the  regent 
was  to  send  his  side  of  the  case  to  the  Council  of  Aragon  and  the 
inquisitor  his  to  the  Suprema,  when  the  king  would  arrange  how 
the  matter  should  be  decided.^  The  two  formulas  were  combined 
in  practice  and  remained  the  established  method  of  settling 
conflicts  of  jurisdiction. 

This  should  have  produced  peace  but  we  have  seen  that  it  only 
gave  occasion  for  fresh  subjects  of  discord.  The  inquisitors  were 
restive  under  any  restraint  on  their  arbitrary  methods  and 
already  in  1560,  a  carta  acordada  of  November  14th  warns  them 
that  they  are  not  to  proceed  with  censures  against  the  judges, 
when  the  latter  offer  competencias,  but  are  to  send  the  papers 
to  the  Suprema  and  await  the  result,  under  a  penalty  of  twenty 
ducats  for  every  infraction  of  the  rule.^  The  inquisitors  however 
avoided  competencias  as  far  as  they  could  and,  when  obliged  to 
concede  them,  the  opportunity  was  taken  of  humiliating  the 
royal  judges  and  make  them  feel  their  inferiority  in  a  manner 
most  galling  to  men  so  tenacious  of  the  respect  due  to  position 
and  so  insistent  on  courtesy.  When  de  Soto  Salazar  reports 
of  the  inquisitors  of  Barcelona  that,  when  they  had  occasion  to 
notify  the  lieutenant  of  the  king  or  the  regent  of  the  Audiencia, 
they  sent  a  messenger  to  summon  him  and  then  kept  him  waiting 
in  the  antechamber  and  that  sometimes  they  called  the  judges 
before  them  and  scolded  them  without  cause,  we  can  readily 
appreciate  the  intensity  of  the  hatred  thus  excited.^ 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  13,  fol.  16. — Proceso  contra  Joaquin 
de  Tunes  (MSS.  of  Am.  Philos.  Society). 

^  Actos  de  Corte  del  Reyno  de  Aragon,  fol.  96  (Zaragoza,  1664). 
'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  942,  fol.  22. 

*  Ibidem,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  17,  fol.  20. 


Chap.  IV]  COMPETENCIAS  519 

So,  when  the  Inquisition  estabhshed  its  formula  for  compe- 
tencias,  they  were  sedulously  framed  to  be  as  arrogantly  insulting 
as  possible.  The  first  mandate  inhibits  peremptorily  the  judge 
from  action  and  orders  him  to  remit  the  case  to  the  tribunal 
within  twenty-four  hours.  If  an  arrest  has  been  made  the 
prisoner  is  to  be  discharged  on  bail  to  present  himself  before 
the  inquisitors  and  any  property  seized  or  sequestrated  is  to  be 
released.  If  the  secular  judge  has  any  reason  to  allege  to  the 
contrary  he  is  to  present  himself  in  person  or  by  procurator  to 
the  tribunal,  which  will  render  justice,  and  all  this  is  under  holy 
obedience  and  the  threat  of  major  excommunication  and  a  heavy 
fine.  If  there  are  any  papers  in  the  case  the  scrivener  is  ordered 
to  surrender  them,  and  the  accuser  or  plaintiff  is  to  appear  within 
a  time  specified  and  receive  justice,  in  default  of  which  the  case 
will  be  heard  without  him  and  without  further  notice.  Then,  if 
a  reply  is  made  to  this  alleging  reasons  for  not  obeying,  a  second 
mandate  is  issued  pronouncing  them  insufficient  and  ordering 
the  first  one  to  be  obeyed  within  a  specified  time  under  the  above 
penalties.  If  the  judge  then  proposes  a  competencia,  a  mandate 
is  sent  to  him  reciting  the  previous  ones  and  saying  that,  to  avoid 
troubling  the  higher  powers,  he  is  ordered  to  surrender  all  papers 
and  suspend  all  action,  or  the  excommunication  and  fine  will  be 
enforced  on  his  person  and  property.  The  next  mandate  accepts 
the  competencia,  states  that  the  tribunal  is  ready  to  forward  its 
papers  and  orders  the  judges  to  send  their  side  within  twelve 
days,  adding  a  threat  of  excommunication  and  fine  if  any  addi- 
tional testimony  be  taken  in  the  case.  All  this  is  phrased  in  the 
most  mandatory  fashion  as  of  a  superior  addressing  a  subordinate 
and  all  these  missives  are  ordered  to  be  returned  to  the  tribunal. 
If,  after  a  competencia  was  formed,  the  familiar  or  official  accepted 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  secular  court,  he  was  deprived  of  his  com- 
mission. As  we  have  frequently  seen,  there  was  no  hesitation, 
at  any  stage  of  the  proceedings,  to  excommunicate  the  judges, 
to  anathematize  them  and  to  lay  an  interdict  on  the  city,  followed 
by  a  cessatio  a  divinis} 

In  addition  to  the  gratification  of  thus  humiliating  the  magis- 
trates, there  was  also  in  this  truculence  the  object  of  rendering 
the  process  so  offensive  as  to  make  them  shrink  from  resisting 
the  encroachments  of  the  Inquisition.     When  this  failed  the 

»  Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  21-29  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  122).— Archive  hist, 
nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Leg.  498. 


520  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

tribunal  had  abundant  sources  of  annoyance  in  raising  intermin- 
able questions  of  precedence  and  formalities,  which  were  some- 
times fought  so  bitterly  and  long  as  virtually  to  supersede  the 
original  case.  The  points  that  could  be  raised  were  endless.  In 
1602.  the  Count  of  Benavente,  then  Viceroy  of  Valencia,  issued 
letters  ordering  a  conference  over  the  arrest  of  Geronimo  Falcon; 
the  tribunal  surrendered  him,  admitting  that  the  case  did  not 
pertain  to  it,  but  demanded  that  the  viceroy  and  chancellery 
should  cancel  the  letters  on  their  records  and,  on  refusal,  it 
excommunicated  the  regent.  The  matter  was  carried  up  to  the 
Suprema  and  Council  of  Aragon,  when  the  king  decided  that  the 
letters  must  be  expunged  and  it  was  done  in  presence  of  a  secre- 
tary of  the  Inquisition.  The  same  humiliation  had  been  inflicted 
on  the  count's  father,  when  he  was  viceroy,  and  also  on  the  Duke 
of  Segorbe.^ 

This  arrogance  continued  until  Carlos  III,  in  his  decree  of  1775, 
informed  the  Inquisition  that  the  royal  jurisdiction  which  it 
exercised  was  on  precisely  the  same  level  as  that  of  his  judges 
and  magistrates;  there  must  be  entire  equality  between  them; 
all  threats  of  excommunication  and  fines  must  be  abandoned; 
there  nmst  be  free  interchange  of  papers,  mutual  courtesy  and 
no  assumption  of  superiority.  It  was  difficult  for  the  tribunals 
to  abandon  the  formulas  which  flattered  their  vanity  and  a  second 
command  was  necessary,  issued  in  1783,  on  the  occasion  of  a 
prolonged  conflict  of  the  Valencia  tribunal  with  the  alcalde  of 
Consentaina.  This  finally  produced  obedience  and  the  Suprema 
transmitted  the  royal  order  to  Valencia  with  instructions  for  its 
observance.^ 

While  this  doubtless  diminished  the  exasperation  of  these  con- 
flicts, it  did  not  check  their  frequency.  They  continued  to  be  a 
constant  source  of  trouble  and  it  was  from  a  desire  to  diminish 
this,  as  well  as  to  extend  its  authority,  that  the  Suprema,  in  1806, 
forbade  the  tribunals  from  instituting  them  without  submitting 
the  case  to  it  and  receiving  its  approval.^  When,  under  the 
Restoration,  the  Inquisition  was  revived,  in  1814,  the  officials 
naturally  claimed  the  fuero,  active  and  passive,  civil  and  criminal, 

*  Portocarrero,  o-p.  cit.,  fol.  47,  48. 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  16,  n.  5,  fol.  25,  27,  39, 

52,  72. 

s  Ibidem,  Leg.  17,  n.  3,  fol.  10. 


Chap.  IV]       MODERATION  UNDER  THE  RESTORATION  621 

and  Fernando  VII,  in  the  decision  of  a  case  carried  up  to  him  from 
Seville,  announced,  February  15,  1815,  in  no  uncertain  tones, 
that  they  should  be  protected  in  its  enjoyment,  but  the  cases 
appear  to  be  rare  and  the  aggressive  spirit  had  disappeared.^ 
When,  in  Seville,  the  creditors  of  Francisco  de  Paula  Esquivol 
complained  of  him  to  the  tribunal,  in  place  of  defending  him,  it 
promptly  dismissed  him,  June  27,  1815,  an  action  which  was 
confirmed  by  the  Suprema.^  Even  more  significant  was  a  case, 
in  1816,  when  in  Seville  Lorenzo  Ayllon  abused  a  priest  while 
celebrating  mass  and  endeavored  to  seize  the  sacrament,  and  the 
secular  authorities  arrested  and  proceeded  to  try  him.  In  such 
a  case  there  could  be  no  (question  as  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Inquisiton,  but  there  was  no  disturbance,  and  when  the  tribunal 
claimed  his  transfer  to  the  secret  prison  the  Suprema  interposed 
and  ordered  that  he  should  be  allowed  to  remain  in  the  pubHc 
gaol,  a  detainer  being  lodged  to  prevent  his  discharge  during  his 
trial— a  concession  to  the  royal  jurisdiction  which  would  have 
petrified  Pacheco  or  Arce  y  Reynoso.^ 

There  was  the  same  disposition  to  avoid  coming  to  extremes 
with  the  spiritual  courts.  In  1816  the  provisor  of  the  see  of  Tuy 
prosecuted  Joseph  Metzcler  for  impious,  execrable  and  sacrilegious 
blasphemies.  The  tribunal  of  Santiago  applied,  in  a  courteous 
note,  to  the  provisor  for  the  papers  and  received  a  reply  without 
signature.  This  the  Suprema  directed  it  to  return  and  explain 
that  there  was  no  desire  to  invade  the  episcopal  jurisdiction,  but 
as  the  blasphemous  propositions  and  acts  of  Metzcler  might  be 
heretical,  of  which  the  Inquisition  had  exclusive  cognizance,  it 
must  insist  on  seeing  the  evidence  to  extract  what  appertained 
to  it,  after  w^hich  the  papers  would  be  returned.  It  seems  to  have 
obtained  the  evidence  for,  on  October  15,  1817,  it  voted  to 
imprison  Metzcler,  as  soon  as  his  trial  by  the  provisor  should  be 
ended,  but  the  Suprema  instructed  it  not  to  wait  for  this,  as  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition  was  privileged.* 

There  was  one  peculiarly  irritating  feature  in  the  position  of 
the  Inquisition  in  these  quarrels,  which  exacerbated  them  greatly 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  559. 
»  Ibidem,  Lib.  890. 

3  Ibidem,  Lib.  890;  Lib.  435'. 

*  Ibidem,  Lib.  890. 


522  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

and  often  neutralized  all  efforts  to  maintain  harmony— the 
power  which  it  arrogated  to  itself  of  refusing  to  form  compe- 
tencias  on  the  ground  that  its  rights  were  too  clear  to  admit  of 
debate.  Thus  it  held  that  the  salaried  and  titular  officials,  with 
their  families  and  servants,  were  so  wholly  beyond  all  secular 
jurisdiction  that  it  refused  to  entertain  any  proceedings  in  contest 
of  their  claims.  It  was  in  vain  that  Philip  III,  by  a  royal  letter 
of  1615,  declared  that  if  inquisitors  refused  a  conference,  on  the 
ground  that  the  matter  was  too  clear  to  justify  it,  the  regent  of 
the  chancellery  should  form  a  competencia  and  forward  the  papers 
as  usual.^  It  was  equally  useless  for  Phihp  IV  to  decree,  in  1630, 
that  when  a  contention  was  started  by  either  party,  the  other 
must  entertain  it,  no  matter  how  clear  it  might  be,  under  pain, 
for  a  first  offence,  of  five  hundred  ducats  and,  for  a  second,  of 
suspension  during  the  royal  pleasure.  To  ensure  the  imposition 
of  the  fine,  each  Council  was  to  give  the  other  faculties  for  its 
collection  from  offenders,  but,  when  the  Suprema  forwarded  this 
decree  to  the  tribunals,  with  orders  for  its  strict  observance,  it 
added  significantly  that  it  did  not  apply  to  cases  of  salaried  and 
titular  officials,  though  no  such  exception  was  made  in  the  decree. 
It  knew  that  Philip  would  never  summon  courage  to  enforce  his 
law  and  it  was  right.  When,  in  1633,  the  Council  of  Aragon 
endeavored  to  collect  such  a  fine,  the  Suprema  interposed,  assert- 
ing that  it  could  only  be  done  by  consent  of  both  Councils,  which 
was,  in  effect,  to  invalidate  the  law,  and  Philip  himself  violated 
it,  in  1634,  when  Augustin  Vidal,  messenger  of  the  tribunal  of 
Valencia,  was  arrested  by  the  royal  court  for  the  murder  of 
Juan  Alonso  Martinez,  a  Knight  of  Santiago  and  Bayle  of 
Alicante.  The  tribunal  demanded  him  and  refused  a  compe- 
tencia, when  Philip  weakly  ordered  him  to  be  surrendered  "for 
this  time  and  without  prejudice  to  my  royal  jurisdiction."^ 

The  Inquisition  carried  its  point.  Philip,  by  decisions  of  1645 
and  1658,  admitted  that  there  could  be  no  competencias  in  the 
case  of  salaried  officials  and  the  Suprema  enforced  these  decisions 
by  a  carta  acordada  of  August  7,  1662,  pointing  out  that  they 
must  not  be  entertained  where  such  officials  were  concerned;  at 
the  same  time  tribunals  were  warned  to  exercise  moderation  and 
not  to  employ  censures  without  consulting  it,  unless  delay  was 

^  Portocarrero,  op.  cit.,  fol.  52. 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  3,  fol.  49;  Leg.  8, 
n.  1,  fol.  422,  423;  Libro  7  de  Autos,  Leg.  2,  fol.  178. 


Chap.  IV]  REFUSAL  OF  COMPETENCIAS  593 

inadmissible/  Even  Philip  however  had  to  intervene  against  the 
consequences  of  his  own  acts,  in  1664,  when  the  portero  of  the 
tribunal  of  Logrono  killed  in  his  house  a  priest,  apparently  through 
jealousy.  The  alcalde  mayor  prosecuted  the  murderer  and 
arrested  his  wife;  the  tribunal  excommunicated  the  alcalde  and 
cast  an  interdict  on  the  town.  The  Council  of  Aragon  formed  a 
competencia  and  claimed  that  during  it  the  censures  should  be 
raised  according  to  custom,  but  the  Suprema  refused  on  the 
ground  that  there  could  be  no  competencia.  Philip  was  appealed 
to  and  ordered  the  censures  raised  for  the  unanswerable  reason 
that  as  judges  under  excommunication  could  not  hold  their 
courts,  if  it  were  allowed  thus  to  paralyze  all  judicial  business 
it  would  have  arbitrary  control  over  all  cases  and  frustrate  all 
legal  remedies.^  This  decision  was  disregarded.  It  seems  ex- 
traordinary that  any  community  would  endure  for  centuries  the 
indefinite  stoppage  of  the  administration  of  justice,  constantly 
occurring  through  the  reckless  abuse  of  the  power  of  excom- 
munication, as  when,  in  1672,  we  find  the  queen-regent  applying 
to  the  inquisitor-general  to  know  how  she  is  to  answer  the  com- 
plaints of  the  town  of  Logrofio  at  the  prolonged  suspension  of 
the  powers  of  the  corregidor  who  lay  under  excommunication, 
seeing  that  there  is  no  conclusion  of  the  competencia  which  has 
been  so  long  pending.^ 

The  Inquisition  evidently  aggravated  as  far  as  it  could  the 
public  distress  as  a  means  of  establishing  its  claims.  In  an 
effort  to  limit  the  abuse  of  refusing  competencias,  there  was  a 
junta  formed,  in  1679,  from  the  Suprema  and  Council  of  State 
with  the  assistance  of  some  theologians.  This  admitted  that 
there  could  be  no  competencia  in  the  cases  of  salaried  officials, 
except  when  they  held  public  office  and  were  prosecuted  for 
malfeasance,  but  it  laid  down  the  rule  that,  when  the  Suprema 
refused  a  competencia,  the  Council  of  State  could  appeal  to  the 
king  who  could  appoint  a  junta  to  decide  this  secondary  question. 
A  limited  time  was  allowed  to  the  Suprema  to  state  its  reasons  for 
refusal  and  during  a  competencia  the  accused  was  to  be  liberated 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  1465,  fol.  79.— MSS.  of  Royal  Library 
of  Copenhagen,  218b,  p.  35I. 

^  Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  iv,  Tit.  1,  Auto  3  (Nueva  Recop.,  Lib.  11,  Tit.  vii, 

ley  3). 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  1465,  fol.  42. 


524  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

on  bail  and  all  censures  were  to  be  raised.^  This  removed  some 
of  the  hardships,  but  the  Suprema  seems  to  have  sought  to  evade 
it  by  sullenly  refusing  to  form  the  juntas  with  the  Royal  Councils, 
for  another  decree  of  Carlos  II  ordered  it  to  attend  when  sum- 
moned so  that  these  affairs  might  be  settled.^  It  was  in  vain 
that,  in  1730,  the  Council  of  Castile  urged  that  competencias  be 
admitted  in  all  cases,  for  Phihp  V  decided  that  the  agreement  of 
1679  should  stand.^  Probably  not  much  was  gained  in  the  latest 
attempt  to  settle  these  perennial  quarrels  by  Carlos  IV  in  1804, 
who  ordered  that  when  a  conflict  arose  between  a  royal  court 
and  a  tribunal,  in  a  matter  not  of  faith  concerning  an  official, 
the  court  should  refer  the  case  to  the  governor  of  the  Royal 
Council  and  the  tribunal  to  the  Suprema.  These  should  then 
select  an  examiner  who  was  to  report  to  the  Secretaria  de  Gracia 
y  Justicia  for  the  royal  decision/ 

The  evils  of  the  system  were  admitted  on  all  hands,  but  it 
was  so  vicious  in  principle  that  remedies  were  impossible.  The 
customary  juntas  of  two  members  each  from  the  Suprema  and 
the  Council  of  Castile  or  of  Aragon  was  at  best  a  clumsy  device, 
onerous  on  the  Councils  and  usually  leading  only  to  procrastina- 
tion. To  systematize  it,  in  1625,  a  permanent  Junta  Grande  de 
Competencias  was  formed  of  two  members  from  each  Council, 
whose  duty  it  should  be  to  despatch  all  cases,  and  rules  for  it 
were  framed  in  April,  1626,  but  it  was  short-Hved.  In  1634  Philip 
IV  ordered  the  formation  of  a  junta  of  two  members  each  of  the 
Suprema  and  Council  of  Castile  to  formulate  a  plan  of  relief,  but, 
on  June  9th  of  that  year,  the  Suprema  reported  that  it  had  never 
been  able  to  accomplish  a  meeting  of  the  Junta.  Then,  in  1657, 
the  Junta  Grande  was  resuscitated  and  we  meet  with  an  allusion 
to  it  in  1659,  but  it  appears  to  have  been  abandoned  soon  after- 
wards.* Ingenuity  was  at  fault  to  alleviate  the  evils  inseparable 
from  the  permanent  antagonism  between  the  rival  jurisdictions. 


^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  1465,  fol.  47;  Lib.  918,  fol.  830. — 
BibL  nacional,  MSS.,  R,  102,  fol.  157-8.— Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  iv,  Tit.  1, 
Auto  5. 

'  Novis.  Recop.,  Lib.  ii,  Tit.  vii,  ley  5. 

'  Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  iv,  Tit.  1,  Gloss  1. 

*  Novis.  Recop.,  Lib.  iv,  Tit.  1,  ley  18. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Leg.  621,  fol.  82;  Inquisicion,  Leg. 
1465,  fol.  50. — Llorente,  Hist,  crft.,  Cap.  xxvi,  Art.  ii,  n.  3. 


Chap.  IV]  PROTRACTED  DELAYS  525 

Of  these  evils  the  one  most  keenly  felt  was  the  interminable  delay 
in  the  settlement  of  cases.    The  councils  from  which  the  members 
were  drawn  were  crowded  with  their  more  legitimate  business; 
there  was  rarely  accord  in  the  junta;  the  matter  would  be  argued 
without  expectation  of  agreement ;  each  side  would  be  obstinate ; 
perhaps  the  case  would  be  referred  to  the  king  or  years  would 
pass  before  a  settlement  would  be  reached;  perhaps,  indeed,  it 
would  be  silently  dropped  without  a  decision,  especially  when 
a  decision  might  be  undesirable  because  one  or  both  sides  feared 
a  troublesome  precedent.    Meanwhile  the  case  remained  petrified 
in  the  condition  existing  at  the  time  the  competencia  was  formed. 
Until  the  so-called  Concordia  of  1679  permitted  the  release  of 
prisoners  on  bail,  if  any  one  had  been  arrested,  he  remained  in 
prison,  perhaps  to  die  there  as  sometimes  occurred.     In  1638 
the  Inquisition  complained  of  this,  when  its  officers  happened 
to  be  the  prisoners,  for  competencias  were  always  slow  of  settle- 
ment and  the  work  of  the  tribunals  was  crippled  for  lack  of  their 
ministers,  while  their  poverty  precluded  their  giving  adequate 
salaries  to  substitutes.'    It  was  not  until  1721  that  a  remedy  for 
this  procrastination  was  sought  by  Phihp  V  in  a  decree  reciting 
the  long  delays  and  the  frequency  of  cases  remaining  undecided 
by  reason  of  a  dead-lock  in  the  junta,  wherefore  in  future  when 
a  junta  was  formed,  he  was  to  be  notified  in  order  that  he  might 
appoint  a  fifth  member,  thus  assuring  a  majority.^     It  does  not 
seem  however   that   this   accomplished  its  purpose  and,   when 
Carlos  III  consolidated  the  cumbrous  framework  of  government 
by  instituting  the  Junta  de  Estado,  composed  of  the  ministers 
of   the  several   departments,  Floridablanca  enumerates,   among 
the  benefits  accruing,   the  expediting  of  cases  of  competencia 
and  avoiding  the  interminable  delays  caused  by  the  etiquette  of 
the  tribunals  and  the  intrigues  of  the  parties  concerned.^ 

I  have  dwelt  thus  in  detail  on  this  subject,  not  only  because  it 
absorbed  so  large  a  portion  of  the  activity  of  the  Inquisition,  but 
because  of  its  importance  in  the  relations  between  the  Holy  Office 
and  the  other  institutions  of  Spain  and  in  explaining  the  detes- 
tation which  the  Inquisition  excited.    If  the  people  regarded  it  as 

1  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  21,  fol.  127. 

2  Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  iv,  Tit.  1,  Auto  10.— Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion, 
Leg.  1465,  fol.  41. 

'  Floridablanca,  Memorial  a  Carlos  III  (MS.  penes  me). 


526  CONFLICTING  JURISDICTIONS  [Book  II 

a  whole  with  awe  and  veneration,  as  the  bulwark  of  the  CathoHc 
faith,  their  hatred  was  none  the  less  for  its  members,  and  the 
perpetual  struggle  against  the  tremendous  odds  of  its  power, 
supported  by  the  unflinching  favor  of  the  Hapsburgs,  bears 
equal  testimony  to  the  tenacity  of  the  Spanish  character  and  to 
the  magnitude  of  the  evils  with  which  the  Inquisition  afflicted 
the  nation. 


CHAPTER  V. 

POPULAR  HOSTILITY 

The  preceding  chapters  illustrate  some  of  the  causes  that 
provoked  popular  hatred  of  the  Inquisition,  but  these  were  by 
no  means  all.  It  enjoyed,  as  we  have  said,  enthusiastic  support 
in  the  exercise  of  its  appropriate  functions  in  defending  the 
faith,  but  apart  from  this,  it  had  infinite  ways  of  exciting  hostility. 
This  was  the  inevitable  result  of  entrusting  irresponsible  power 
to  men,  for  the  most  part  overbearing  and  arrogant,  who  owed 
obedience  only  to  the  Suprema  and  who  early  learned  that,  while 
it  might  disapprove  of  their  acts,  it  always  supported  them  against 
complaints  and,  while  it  might  administer  rebuke  in  secret,  it 
hesitated  long  before  it  would  compromise  the  asserted  infalli- 
bility of  the  Holy  Office  by  dismissal  or  any  other  pubUc  demon- 
stration. There  was  no  other  power  to  call  them  to  account  and 
they  could  rely  upon  its  indulgence.  This  indulgence  they  ex- 
tended to  their  subordinates,  over  whom,  indeed,  they  had  not 
the  power  of  removal,  and  the  consequence  was  that  the  whole 
body  thoroughly  earned  the  detestation  of  the  people  by  the  abuse 
of  their  privileges,  creating  irritation  which  was  none  the  less 
exasperating  because  its  causes  might  be  trivial.  The  situation 
finds  expression  in  a  carta  acordada  of  October  12,  1561,  in  which 
the  Suprema  begs  the  tribunals,  for  the  love  of  God,  to  inflict 
no  wrong  or  oppression  for,  since  they  are  accused  when  they  do 
right,  what  is  to  be  expected  when  they  give  just  grounds  of 
complaint  ?^ 

Whether  just  or  not,  grounds  of  complaint  were  never  lacking. 
The  power  of  the  inquisitor  had  practically  scarce  any  bounds 
but  his  own  discretion,  and  the  temptation  to  its  abuse  was  irre- 
sistible to  the  kind  of  men  who  mostly  filled  the  position.  In 
the  memorial  of  Llerena  to  Phihp  and  Juana,  in  1506,  complaint 
is  made  that  the  officials  seized  all  the  houses  that  they  wanted 
and  in  one  case,  when  some  young  orphan  girls  did  not  vacate 
as  quickly  as  ordered,  they  fastened  up  the  street-door  and  the 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Libro  939,  foL  64. 

(527) 


528  POPULAR  HOSTILITY  [Book  II 

occupants  were  obliged  to  make  an  opening  in  order  to  leave  it.^ 
The  same  spirit  was  shown  to  parties  not  quite  so  defenceless 
in  1642,  when  its  exhibition  in  Cordova  nearly  provoked  a  chsas- 
trous  tumult.  There  was  a  vacant  house  which  Juan  de  Ribera, 
one  of  the  inquisitors,  talked  of  renting,  but  he  went  to  Murcia 
without  taking  it.  On  his  return  he  found  that  it  had  been  leased 
to  a  son  of  Don  Pedro  de  Cardenas,  one  of  the  veinticuatros,  or 
town-councillors.  He  sent  for  Cardenas  and  asked  whether,  he 
knew  that  he  had  engaged  the  house.  Cardenas  professed  igno- 
rance, adding  that,  if  he  had  not  moved  his  family  into  it,  he 
would  abandon  it.  Ribera  ordered  him  to  leave  it  and,  on  his 
refusal,  the  tribunal  took  up  the  quarrel  by  serving  on  him  a 
notice  to  quit.  As  he  did  not  obey,  it  cited  him  to  appear  and 
forced  him  to  give  security.  His  kinsmen  and  friends  rallied 
around  him  and  promised  to  sustain  him  by  force;  the  matter 
became  town-talk  and  the  tribunal  felt  its  honor  engaged  to 
sustain  its  commands  by  violence.  It  assembled  the  two  com- 
panies of  soldiers  which  it  kept  in  the  alcazar,  while  the  caballeros 
armed  themselves  and  guarded  the  house.  The  corregidor 
appealed  to  the  tribunal  not  to  drench  the  city  in  blood  by 
exposing  the  poor  civic  militia  to  the  swords  of  the  gentlemen, 
and  it  consented  to  carry  the  matter  to  the  king.  The  Council 
of  Castile  ordered  that  the  tenant  be  maintained  in  possession, 
while  the  Suprenia  instructed  the  tribunal  not  to  yield  a  jot, 
but  to  eject  him  by  whatever  means  it  could.^  What  was  the  out- 
come does  not  appear,  but  the  case  illustrates  the  extent  to  which 
the  Inquisition  magnified  its  powers  and  the  determination  with 
which  it  employed  them. 

It  was  impossible  to  prevent  these  lawless  abuses.  The  Suprema 
might  scold  and  threaten  but,  as  it  rarely  punished  and  always 
protected  the  offenders,  its  restraining  efforts  amounted  to  little. 
The  visitadores,  or  inspectors,  duly  reported  disorders,  and 
instructions  would  be  issued  to  reform  them,  but  to  these  the 
inquisitors  paid  little  respect.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
the  Barcelona  tribunal  was  worse  than  any  other  and  a  series  of 
reports  of  visitations  there  gives  us  an  insight  into  the  evils 
inflicted  on  the  people.  In  1544,  Doctor  Alonso  Perez  sent  in  a 
report  in  consequence  of  which  the  Suprema  roundly  rebuked 
all  the  subordinates,  except  the  judge  of  confiscations.     All  but 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  44. 
*  Cartas  de  Jesuitas  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  XVI,  366). 


Chap.  V]  ABUSES  529 

two  were  defamed  for  improper  relations  with  women;  all  accepted 
presents;  all  made  extra  and  illegal  charges;  all  neglected  their 
duties  and  most  of  them  quarrelled  with  each  other.  The  fiscal 
was  especially  objectionable  for  his  improper  conduct  of  prose- 
cutions and  for  appropriating  articles  belonging  to  the  tribunal; 
he  refused  to  pay  his  debts;  he  arrested  a  candle-maker  for  not 
furnishing  candles  as  promptly  as  he  demanded;  when  a  certain 
party  bought  some  sheep  from  a  peasant  and  was  dissatisfied 
with  his  bargain,  the  fiscal  cited  the  peasant,  asserted  that  the 
purchase  money  was  his  and  forced  the  peasant  to  take  back  the 
sheep  and  return  the  money.  Yet  the  Suprema  was  too  tender 
of  the  honor  of  the  Holy  Office  to  dismiss  a  single  one  of  the 
peccant  officials.  It  ordered  them  to  be  severely  reprimanded, 
a  few  debts  to  be  paid  and  presents  to  be  returned  and  uttered 
some  vague  threats  of  what  it  would  do  if  they  continued  in  their 
evil  courses.^ 

The  natural  result  of  this  indulgence  appears  in  the  next  visita- 
tion by  the  Licenciado  Vaca,  in  1549.  The  same  abuses  were 
flourishing,  with  the  addition  that  the  inquisitor,  Diego  de  Sar- 
miento,  had  accepted  the  position  of  commissioner  of  the  Cru- 
zada  indulgence  and  had  appointed  as  its  preachers  and  collectors 
the  commissioners  and  familiars  of  the  tribunal,  to  the  great 
oppression  and  vexation  of  the  people,  whose  dread  of  the  Holy 
Office  prevented  complaints.  Sarmiento  was  dismissed  in  1550, 
but  in  1552  he  was  reappointed  to  Barcelona;  the  fiscal  and  notary, 
who  were  specially  inculpated,  were  suspended  for  six  months 
and  the  gaoler,  for  ill-treatment  of  prisoners,  was  mulcted  in  one 
month's  wages.^  In  1561  another  visitation  was  made  by  Inquisi- 
tor Gaspar  Cervantes,  whose  report  was  exceedingly  severe  on 
the  disorders  of  the  tribunal  and  drew  from  the  Suprema  an 
energetic  demand  for  their  reform.'  This  produced  no  amendment, 
the  tribunal  went  on  undisturbed  until  the  complaints  of  the 
Cortes  of  1564  led  to  another  and  more  searching  investigation 
by  de  Soto  Salazar,  in  1566.  There  were  not  only  abuses  of  all 
kinds  in  the  trials  of  heresy  but  numerous  cases  in  which,  as  the 
Suprema  told  them,  they  had  no  jurisdiction.  Apparently  they 
were  ready  to  put  their  unlimited  powers  at  the  disposal  of  all 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  141-7. 
»  Ibidem,  fol.  179,  182,  196-6,  199    201,  205,  212,  217. 
'  Ibidem,  fol.  255-61 ;  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  2. 

34 


530  POPULAR  HOSTILITY  [Book  II 

comers  and  imprisoned,  fined  and  punished  in  the  most  arbitrary- 
manner,  gathering  fees,  commissions  and  doubtless  bribes  and 
selhng  injustice  to  all  who  wanted  it,  while  the  dread  of  their 
censures  prevented  opposition  or  remonstrance.  In  these  cases, 
which  were  not  of  faith,  the  accused  were  often  seized  in  the 
churches,  where  they  had  sought  asylum,  as  though  they  were 
wanted  for  heresy  and  the  repeated  instances  in  which  the  Suprema 
orders  their  names  stricken  from  the  records  points  to  one  of  the 
most  cruel  results  of  this  reckless  abuse  of  jmisdiction,  for  it 
inflicted  on  the  sufferer,  his  kindred  and  posterity,  an  infamy- 
unendurable  to  the  Spaniard  of  the  period.  The  long  and  detailed 
missive  which  the  Suprema  addressed  to  the  tribunal,  as  the 
result  of  Salazar's  report,  gives  a  most  vivid  inside  view  of 
the  abuses  naturally  springing  from  unrestrained  autocracy, 
which,  by  the  absolute  and  impenetrable  secrecy  of  its  opera- 
tions, was  relieved  from  all  responsibility  to  its  victims  or  to 
public  opinion.  The  Suprema  takes  every  official  in  turn,  from 
inquisitors  down  to  messengers,  specifies  their  misdeeds  and 
scores  them  mercilessly,  showing  that  the  whole  organization 
was  solely  intent  on  making  dishonest  gains,  on  magnifying  its 
privileges  and  on  tyrannizing  over  the  community,  while  the 
defence  of  the  faith  was  the  baldest  pretext  for  the  gratification 
of  greed  and  evil  passions.  Yet  all  this  was  practically  regarded 
as  quite  compatible  with  the  duties  of  the  Inquisition.  The  three 
inquisitors,  Padilla,  Zurita  and  Mexia,  were  suspended  for  three 
3^ears  and  were  then  sent  to  repeat  their  misdeeds  elsewhere  and 
the  two  former  were  in  addition  fined  ten  ducats  apiece.^  That 
an  institution  possessing  these  powers  and  exercising  them  in 
such  fashion,  should  be  regarded  with  terror  and  detestation  was 
inevitable.  We  shall  see  hereafter  how  it  shrouded  all  its  acts 
in  inviolable  secrecy  and  how  it  rightly  regarded  this  as  one  of 
the  most  important  factors  of  its  influence,  and  we  can  under- 
stand the  mysterious  dread  which  this  inspired,  while,  at  the 
same  time,  it  released  the  inquisitor  and  his  subordinates  from 
the  wholesome  restraint  of  publicity. 

The  smothered  hostility  thus  excited  was  always  ready  for  an 
explosion  when  opportunity  offered  to  gratify  it.  In  the  desire 
to  stimulate  the  breeding  of  horses,  a  royal  pragmatica,  in  1628, 
prohibited   the  use  of  mules  for   coaches.     The  inquisitors  of 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  20, 


Chap.  V]  ABUSES  631 

Logrono,  in  the  full  confidence  that  no  one  would  venture  to 
interfere  with  them,  persisted  in  driving  with  mules  and  when 
the  corregidor,  Don  Francisco  Bazan,  remonstrated  and  threat- 
ened to  seize  a  coach,  they  told  him  it  would  be  his  ruin.  He  did 
not  venture,  but,  in  1633,  he  procured  from  the  Council  of  Castile 
an  order  that  no  coaches  should  be  used  in  Logrofio,  under 
pretext  that  they  damaged  certain  shops  projecting  on  the 
principal  street.  The  fiscal  of  the  tribunal  undertook  to  meet 
this  by  asserting  that  it  had  a  special  privilege  from  the  king 
concerning  coaches,  but  when  Bazan  promised  to  obey,  it  was  not 
forthcoming.  The  Suprema  took  up  the  quarrel  and  represented 
to  Philip  IV  the  hardship  inflicted  on  the  inquisitors,  too  old  and 
feeble  for  the  saddle;  the  compassionate  king  endorsed  on  the 
consulta  the  customary  formula  of  approval — "I  have  so  ordered" ; 
the  vSuprema  then  appHed  to  the  Council  of  Castile  for  a  corre- 
sponcUng  order  and  several  communications  passed  without 
result.  Another  consulta  was  presented  to  the  king,  who  endorsed 
it  "I  have  so  ordered  again,"  but  the  Council  of  Castile  was  still 
evasive.  Then  the  Logrofio  authorities  offered  to  the  Bishop 
of  Calahorra  permission  to  use  coaches  and  intimated  to  the 
inquisitors  that,  if  they  would  apply  for  a  Ucence,  it  would  be 
given.  The  Suprema  forbade  them  thus  to  recognize  the  local 
magistracy,  as  they  had  royal  authority,  whereupon  they  resumed 
the  use  of  their  coaches;  the  alguazil  of  the  corregidor  arrested 
one  of  their  coachmen  and  they  excommunicated  the  corregidor. 
The  king,  December  9,  1633,  ordered  him  to  be  absolved,  to 
which,  on  December  30th,  the  Suprema  repUed  that  he  would 
be  absolved  if  he  made  application.  The  Council  of  Castile 
presented  to  the  king  a  consulta,  arguing  that  ecclesiastics  and 
inquisitors  alike  owed  obedience  to  the  laws  and  that  the  corregi- 
dor had  acted  with  great  moderation.  February  5,  1634,  the 
king  enquired  what  had  been  done  with  the  corregidor,  but  it 
was  not  until  December  16th  that  the  Suprema  condescended  to 
reply,  complaining  bitterly  of  the  slight  put  upon  the  Inquisition, 
when  the  whole  safety  of  the  monarchy  depended  upon  its  labors. 
Finally,  on  February  15,  1635,  the  Council  of  Castile  sent  to  the 
Suprema  a  Hcence  for  the  use  of  coaches  in  Logrono,  at  the  same 
time  intimating  that  its  tax  of  viedia  anata  had  not  been  paid. 
In  the  course  of  the  quarrel  the  Council  presented  a  very  forcible 
consulta  to  the  king  which  exhibits  the  Hght  in  which  the  Inqui- 
sition was  regarded  by  the  highest  authorities  of  the  State.    It 


532  POPULAR  HOSTILITY  [Book  II 

represented  that  everywhere  the  inquisitors  and  their  officials, 
under  color  of  privileges  that  they  did  not  possess,  were  causing 
grave  disorders.  They  were  vexing  and  molesting  the  corregidors 
and  other  ministers  of  the  king,  oppressing  them  with  violent 
methods  and  frightening  them  with  threats  of  punishment  in 
order  to  deter  them  from  defending  the  royal  jurisdiction.  Thus 
crimes  remained  unpunished,  justice  became  a  mockery  and  the 
king's  vassals  were  afflicted  with  what  they  were  made  to  suffer 
in  their  honor,  their  lives,  their  fortunes  and  their  con- 
sciences.* 

Trivial  quarrels  such  as  this,  developed  until  they  distracted 
the  attention  of  the  king  and  his  advisers,  were  constantly  break- 
ing out  and  bear  testimony  to  the  antagonistic  spirit  which  was 
all-pervading.  A  long-standing  cause  of  dissension  in  Logrofio 
may  be  taken  as  a  type  of  what  was  occurring  in  many  other 
places.  Local  officials  there,  as  elsewhere,  had  a  perquisite  in 
the  public  carniceria,  or  shambles,  of  dividing  among  themselves 
the  vientres  or  menudos — the  chitterlings — of  the  beasts  slaugh- 
tered. It  was  not  unnatural  that  the  inquisitors  and  their  subor- 
dinates should  seek  to  share  in  this,  but  the  claim  was  grudgingly 
admitted,  as  it  diminished  the  portions  of  the  town  officers,  and 
it  led  to  bickerings.  In  1572  Logrono  complained  to  the  Suprema 
that,  while  it  was  willing  to  give  to  each  inquisitor  the  menudo  of 
a  sheep  every  week,  the  inferior  officials,  down  to  the  messengers, 
claimed  the  same  and,  when  there  was  not  enough  to  go  round, 
they  caused  the  slaughter  of  additional  sheep,  in  order  to  get 
their  perquisite.  As  the  population  was  poor,  living  mostly  on 
cow-beef,  and  meat  would  not  keep  in  hot  weather,  this  caused 
much  waste,  wherefore  the  town  begged  that  during  the  four 
hot  months  the  inferior  officials  should  be  content  with  what 
the  town  officers  received  and  during  the  other  eight  months  it 
would  endeavor  to  give  them  more.  To  this  the  Suprema  gra- 
ciously assented,  but,  in  1577,  there  was  another  outbreak,  to  quiet 
which  the  Suprema  ordered  the  enforcement  of  the  agreement. 
In  1584  trouble  arose  again  and  still  more  in  1593  and  in  1601 
it  reached  a  point  at  which  the  tribunal  summoned  all  the  staff 
of  the  carniceria  and  scolded  them  roundly,  giving  rise  to  great 
excitement.  Then  in  1620  there  was  a  worse  outbreak  than  ever, 
owing  to  the  refusal  of  the  regidor  to  give  to  one  of  the  inquisitors 

^  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218^,  p.  125. — Archive  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,  Lib.  32,  fol.  109,  117. 


Chap.  V]  ABUSES  533 

two  pairs  of  sheep's  stones  asked  for  on  the  plea  that  he  had 
guests  to  breakfast.  The  angry  inquisitor,  thus  deprived  of  his 
breakfast  rehsh,  induced  the  tribunal  to  summon  the  regidor 
before  it  and  severely  reprimand  him,  thus  not  only  inflicting 
a  grave  stigma  on  him,  but  insulting  the  town,  of  which  it  com- 
plained loudly  to  the  Suprema.^  It  is  easy  to  understand  how 
trifles  of  the  kind  kept  up  a  perpetual  irritation,  of  which  only 
the  exacerbations  appear  in  the  records. 

The  privileges  of  the  markets,  in  fact,  were  a  source  of  endless 
troubles.  It  was  recognized  that  both  secular  and  ecclesiastical 
officials  were  entitled  to  the  first  choice  and  to  be  served  first. 
Those  of  the  Inquisition  claimed  the  same  privilege,  not  only  in 
cities  where  there  was  a  tribunal,  but  also  where  the  scattered 
commissioners  and  notaries  resided.  That  this  was  frequently 
resisted  is  shown  by  the  formula  of  mandate  to  be  used  in  such 
cases,  addressed  to  the  corregidor  or  alcaldes,  setting  forth  that 
the  rights  in  this  respect  of  the  aggrieved  party  had  not  been 
respected  and  that  in  future  he  should  have  the  first  and  best 
(after  the  secular  and  ecclesiastical  officials  had  been  served) 
of  all  provisions  that  he  required,  at  current  prices,  and  this 
under  penalty  of  twenty  thousand  maravedis,  besides  punish- 
ment to  the  full  rigor  of  the  law.^  It  does  not  appear  that  there 
really  was  any  legislation  entitling  the  Inquisition  to  this  privi- 
lege, but  in  the  frequent  troubles  arising  from  its  assertion,  the 
inquisitors  acted  with  their  customary  truculence.  A  writer,  in 
1609,  who  deprecates  these  quarrels,  suggests  as  a  cure  that  the 
king  issue  a  decree  that  the  representatives  of  the  Inquisition 
shall  have  preference  in  purchasing  and,  at  the  same  time,  he  tells 
of  a  case  in  Toledo  where  a  regidor,  who  told  the  steward  of  the 
tribimal  to  take  as  many  eggs  as  he  wanted,  but  no  more,  was 
arrested  and  prosecuted,  and  of  another  in  Cordova,  where  a 
hidalgo,  who  had  bought  a  shad  and  refused  to  give  it  up  to  an 
acquaintance  of  a  servant  of  an  inquisitor,  was  punished  with  two 
hundred  lashes  and  sent  to  the  galleys.'  In  1608  the  Suprema 
issued  an  injunction  that  purveyors  of  inquisitors  should  take 
nothing  by  force,  the  significance  of  which  lies  rather  in  the 

1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Logrofio,  Leg.  1,  n.  21,  22;  Inquisicion, 
Leg.   1157,  fol.  90. 

*  Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  43  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  122). 

*  Discurso  en  razon  del  acuerdo  que  se  puede  tomar  entre  las  jurisdicciones 
(MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  Seld.  A.  Subt.  13;  Arch.  S,  130). 


534  POPULAR  HOSTILITY  [Book  II 

indication  of  existing  abuses  than  in  its  promise  of  their  removal.* 
The  claim  of  preference  was  pushed  so  far  that  in  Seville,  in  1705, 
there  arose  a  serious  trouble  because  the  servant  of  an  inquisitor 
detained  boat-loads  of  fish  coming  to  market,  in  order  to  make 
his  selection,  and  it  required  a  royal  cedula  of  March  26,  1705, 
forbidding  inquisitors  to  detain  fish  or  other  provisions  on  the 
way,  or  to  designate  by  banderillas  the  pieces  selected  for  them- 
selves.^ When  we  consider  the  character  of  the  slaves  and  servants 
thus  clothed  with  authority  to  insult  and  browbeat  whomsoever 
they  chose,  in  the  exercise  of  such  functions,  we  can  conceive 
the  wrath  and  indignation  stored  up  against  their  masters  in  the 
thousands  of  cases  where  fear  prevented  an  explosion.  It  is  true 
that  the  Suprema  issued  instructions  that  all  purveyors  should 
behave  themselves  modestly  and  give  no  ground  of  offence  and 
that  no  one  should  be  sunnnoned  or  imprisoned  for  matters 
arising  out  of  provisions,  but  as  usual  these  orders  were  disre- 
garded. Insolence  would  naturally  eUcit  a  hasty  rejoinder  which, 
as  reported  by  the  servant  to  his  master,  would  imply  disrespect 
towards  the  Holy  Office,  and  severe  punishment  would  be  justified 
on  that  account. 

Perhaps  less  irritating  but  more  serious  in  its  effects  was  the 
use  made  of  the  fuero  by  those  engaged  in  trade.  Inquisitor- 
general  Deza,  in  1504,  issued  a  stringent  prohibition  against  any 
salaried  official  having  an  interest,  direct  or  indirect,  in  any 
business.  Daily  experience,  he  said,  showed  how  much  oppro- 
brium and  disturbance  it  brought  upon  the  Inquisition,  where- 
fore he  decreed  that  it  should,  ipso  facto,  deprive  the  offender  of 
his  position  and  subject  him  to  a  fine  of  twenty  thousand  mara- 
vedis;  he  should  cease  to  be  an  official  as  soon  as  contravention 
occurred  and  the  receiver,  under  pain  of  fifty  ducats,  should  cut 
off  his  salary.  All  officials  cognizant  of  such  a  case  should  notify 
the  inquisitor-general  within  fifteen  days,  under  pain  of  major 
excommunication,  and  this  order  was  to  be  read  in  all  tribunals 
in  presence  of  the  assembled  officials.^ 

The  severity  of  this  regulation  indicates  the  recognized  magni- 
tude of  the  evil,  and  its  retention  in  the  compilation  of  Instruc- 
tions shows  that  it  was  considered  as  remaining  in  force.    Like 

*  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218^,  p.  201. 

'  Archivo  de  Sevilla,  Seccion  primera,  Carpeta  X,  n.  213  (Sevilla,  1860). 

»  Arguello,  fol.  23.— MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218^,  p.  221. 


Chap.  V]  OFFICIALS  AS  TRADERS  535 

all  other  salutary  rules,  however,  it  was  slackly  enforced  from 
the  first  and  the  Catalans  took  care  to  have  the  prohibition 
embodied  in  the  bull  Pastoralis  officii.  It  gradually  became 
obsolete.  A  royal  decree  of  August  9,  1725,  in  exempting  from 
taxation  the  salaries  of  officials  of  the  tribunal  of  Saragossa, 
adds  that,  if  they  possess  property  or  are  in  trade,  those  assets 
are  taxable,  showing  that  their  ability  to  trade  was  recognized/ 
How  aggravating  was  the  advantage  which  they  thus  enjoyed 
can  be  gathered  from  a  Valencia  case  of  about  1750.  Joseph 
Segarra,  the  contador  of  the  tribunal,  entered  into  partnership 
with  Joseph  Miralles,  a  carpenter,  to  bring  timber  from  the 
Sierra  de  Cuenca.  In  the  settlement  Segarra  claimed  from 
Miralles  a  balance  of  1779  libras;  they  entered  into  a  formal 
agreement  to  accept  the  arbitration  of  Doctor  Boyl,  but  Segarra 
rejected  the  award  and  Miralles  sought  to  enforce  it  in  the  royal 
court.  Then  the  tribunal  intervened,  asserting  the  award  to  be 
invahd  because  Segarra  could  not  divest  the  Inquisition  of  its 
jurisdiction  and  it  refused  the  request  of  the  regent  for  a  con- 
ference and  a  competencia.^  Evidently  it  was  dangerous  to  have 
dealings  with  officials;  they  always  had  a  winning  card  up  the 
sleeve,  to  be  played  when  needed. 

As  regards  the  great  army  of  familiars,  it  was  of  course  impos- 
sible to  prevent  them  from  trading.  In  fact  traders  eagerly 
sought  the  position  in  view  of  the  advantages  it  ofTered  of  having 
the  Inquisition  at  their  backs,  whether  to  escape  payment  of 
debts  or  to  collect  claims  or  to  evade  customs  dues,  or  in  many 
other  ways,  not  recognized  by  the  Concordias  but  allowed  by 
the  tribunals.  The  Suprema  occasionally  warned  the  inquisi- 
tors not  to  appoint  men  of  low  class,  such  as  butchers,  pastry- 
cooks, shoemakers  and  the  Hke,  or  traders  whose  object  was  protec- 
tion in  their  business,^  but  no  attention  was  paid  to  this;  a  large 
portion  of  the  familiars  was  of  this  class,  and  the  space  occupied 
in  the  formularies  by  forms  of  levy  and  execution  and  sale  and 
other  similar  matters  shows  how  much  business  was  brought  to 
the  tribunals  by  the  collection  of  their  claims.*  The  opportunities 
thus  afforded  for  fraudulent  dealings,  for  evading  obligations  and 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  27,  fol.  88. 

*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  3.  fol.  16. 

5  Ibidem,  Leg.  5,  n.  2,  fol.  157,  158.— Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib. 
940,  fol.  172. 

*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Leg.  498. 


536  POPULAR  HOSTILITY  [Book  II 

for  enforcing  unjust  demands  were  assuredly  not  neglected  and 
may  be  reckoned  among  the  sources  of  the  animosity  felt  for 
everyone  connected  with  the  Holy  Office. 

In  the  remarkable  paper  presented,  in  1623,  to  the  Suprema 
by  one  of  its  members,  many  of  the  abuses  of  the  Inquisition 
are  attributed  to  the  indifferent  character  and  poverty  of  the 
officials.  It  would  be  well,  the  writer  says,  to  appoint  none  but 
clerics,  holding  preferment  to  support  themselves  and  unen- 
cumbered with  wife  and  children.  They  would  not,  when  dying, 
leave  penniless  families,  which  obhges  the  inquisitor-general  to 
give  to  the  children  their  fathers'  offices,  thus  bringing  into  the 
tribunals  men  who  cannot  even  read;  an  increase  of  salaries, 
also,  would  relieve  them  of  the  necessity  of  taking  bribes  under 
cover  of  fees,  and  thus  would  put  a  stop  to  the  popular  murmurs 
against  them.  The  inquisitors  moreover  should  have  power  of 
removal,  subject  to  confirmation  by  the  Suprema,  for  now  their 
hands  are  tied;  their  subordinates  are  unruly  and  uncontrollable. 
The  greatest  injury  to  the  reputation  of  the  Holy  Office,  arises 
from  its  bad  officials,  who  recognize  no  responsibility.  No  one 
should  be  appointed  to  office,  or  as  a  familiar,  who  is  a  tailor, 
carpenter,  mason  or  other  mechanic ;  it  is  these  people  who  cause 
quarrels  with  the  secular  authorities,  for  they  have  little  to  lose 
and  claim  to  be  inviolable.  In  short,  if  we  may  believe  the  writer, 
the  whole  body  of  the  tribunals,  except  the  inquisitors,  was  rotten; 
none  of  the  officials,  from  the  fiscals  down,  were  to  be  trusted, 
for  all  were  eagerly  in  pursuit  of  dishonest  gains,  robbing  the 
Inquisition' itself  and  all  who  came  in  contact  with  it,  and  to  this 
he  attributed  its  loss  of  public  respect  and  confidence.^ 

Matters  did  not  improve,  for  the  Suprema  always  defended  the 
tribunals  from  all  complaints,  and  its  tenderness  towards  delin- 
quents assured  them  of  virtual  impunity.  At  length,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  1703,  Philip  V  made  an  attempt  at  reform.  It  was 
probably  owing  to  this  pressure  that,  in  1705,  the  Suprema 
issued  a  carta  acordada  prohibiting  a  number  of  special  abuses 
and  pointing  out  that,  in  regard  to  the  proprieties  of  life,  neither 
inquisitors  nor  officials  obeyed  the  Instructions,  consorting  with 
improper  persons  and  intervening  in  matters  wholly  foreign  to 
their  duties,  thus  rendering  odious  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Holy 
Office.'     From  various  incidents  alluded  to  above  it  is  evident 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  926,  fol.  15-26. 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  10,  n.  2,  fol.  178. 


Chap.  V]  COMPLAINTS  OF  FEUDALISM  537 

that  this  produced  Httle  amendment  but,  when  the  vacillation 
of  Philip  V  was  succeeded  by  the  resolute  purpose  of  Cailos  III 
and  his  able  ministers,  the  power  of  the  Inquisition  to  oppress 
was  greatly  curbed. 

It  was  not  alone  the  commonalty  that  had  reason  to  complain 
of  the  extended  jurisdiction  claimed  by  the  Inquisition.  The 
feudal  nobles,  whose  rights  were  already  curtailed  by  the  growth 
of  the  royal  power,  were  restive  under  the  interjection  of  this 
new  and  superior  jurisdiction,  which  recognized  no  limitations 
or  boundaries  and  interfered  with  their  supremacy  within  their 
domains.  Thus  in  1553,  the  Duke  of  Najera  complained  that, 
in  his  town  of  Navarrete,  the  commissioner  of  the  Inquisition 
had  insulted  his  alcalde  mayor  and  then,  with  some  familiars, 
had  forcibly  taken  wheat  from  his  alguazil.  Inquisitor-general 
Valdes  wrote  to  the  tribunal  of  Calahorra  to  investigate  the 
matter  and  punish  the  officials  if  found  in  fault;  the  alcalde  and 
alguazil  were  not  to  be  prosecuted  save  for  matters  pertaining 
to  the  Inquisition  and  this  not  only  in  view  of  its  proper  adminis- 
tration but  because  he  desired  to  gratify  the  duke.^ 

A  still  more  serious  cause  of  complaint,  to  which  the  nobles 
were  fully  alive,  was  the  release  of  their  vassals  from  jurisdiction 
by  appointment  to  office.  In  1549,  the  Countess  of  Nieva  ap- 
pealed to  Valdes,  setting  forth  that  Arnedo  was  a  place  belonging 
to  the  count;  it  was  within  three  leagues  of  Calahorra  and  there 
had  never  been  a  familiar  there  until  recently  Inquisitor  Valdeo- 
livas  had  appointed  some  peasants  in  order  to  enfranchise  them 
from  the  jurisdiction  of  their  lord.  It  was  not  just  that,  while 
the  count  was  absent  from  the  kingdom  on  the  king's  service, 
his  peasants  should  be  thus  honored  in  order  that  they  might 
create  disturbance  in  the  villages  and  interfere  with  the  feudal 
jurisdiction.^  It  may  well  be  doubted  whether  her  request  for 
the  revocation  of  the  commissions  was  granted,  but  that  her 
prevision  of  trouble  was  justified  is  seen  in  a  case  before  the 
tribunal  of  Barcelona,  in  1577,  in  which  Don  Pedro  de  Queral, 
lord  of  Santa  Coloma,  a  powerful  noble  of  Tarragona,  endeavored 
to  secure  the  punishment  of  two  of  his  vassals,  Juan  Requesens, 
a  miller,  and  his  cousin  Vicente.  They  were  both  familiars  and 
seem  to  have  been  the  leaders  of  a  discontented  opposition  which 

*  Archive  de  Siniancas,  Inquisicion,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  215. 
»  Ibidem,  fol.  180. 


^ 


538  POPULAR  HOSTILITY  [Book  II 

rendered  Don  Pedro's  life  miserable.  The  trees  in  his  plantations 
were  cut  down,  his  arms,  over  the  door  of  his  bayle  in  Santa 
Coloma,  were  removed  and  defaced,  libellous  coplas  against  him 
were  scattered  around  the  streets,  but  the  cousins,  being  famil- 
iars, were  safe  from  his  wrath.  Don  Pedro  died  but  the  trouble 
continued  between  his  widow,  the  Countess  of  Queral  and  a  new 
generation  of  Requesens,  who  succeeded  to  their  fathers'  office 
of  familiars.  Finally,  in  1608,  she  succeeded  in  convicting  Juan 
Requesens  of  malicious  mischief,  but  her  only  satisfaction  was 
that  he  was  reprimanded,  warned  and  sentenced  to  pay  the  costs, 
amounting  to  11 5|  reales.^  Such  a  case  shows  how  feudalism 
was  undermined  and  we  can  conceive  how  nobles  must  have 
writhed  under  the  novel  experience  of  rebellious  vassals  clothed 
with  inviolability. 

It  is  easy  therefore  to  understand  the  detestation  felt  for  the 
Inquisition  by  all  classes — laymen  and  ecclesiastics,  noble  and 
simple.  It  was  fully  aware  of  this  and  constantly  alleged  it  to 
the  king  when  defending  the  tribunals  in  their  quarrels,  and  when 
urging  enlarged  privileges  as  a  protection  against  the  hatred 
which  it  had  excited.  In  its  appeals  against  the  curtailment  of 
its  jurisdiction  in  Aragon,  it  did  not  hesitate  to  admit  that  it 
had  been  hated  there  from  the  beginning  and  that  its  officials 
were  so  abhorred  that  they  would  not  be  safe  if  exposed  to 
secular  justice  and,  even  as  late  as  1727,  it  repeated  the  assertion 
of  the  persistent  hostiUty  of  the  Aragonese.^  In  Logrofio,  the 
inquisitors  reported  to  the  Suprema,  in  1584,  that  it  was  a 
common  saying  among  the  people  that  their  life  consisted  in 
discord  with  the  tribunal  and  that  it  was  death  to  them  when 
there  was  peace.^  It  was  the  same  in  Castile.  The  Cortes,  in 
1566,  when  encouraging  Philip  II  to  constrain  the  Flemings  to 
admit  the  Inquisition,  gave  as  a  reason  that  his  success  there  was 
necessary  to  the  peaceful  maintenance  of  the  institution  in  Spain, 
thus  intimating  that,  if  the  Flemings  rejected  it,  the  Castilians 
would  seek  to  follow  their  example.*  In  the  same  year  the  famil- 
iars alleged  that  the  detestation  in  which  they  were  held  led  them 
to  be  singled  out  for  especial  oppression  in  the  billeting  of  troops 


^  Proceso  contra  Juan  Requesens  (MSS.  of  Am.  Philos.  Society). 
'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Mm,  464.— Archive  gen.  de  la  C,  de  Aragon,  Leg.  528. 
— Archive  de  Simancas,  Lib.  27,  fol.  88. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  1157,  fol.  90. 

*  D^p^ches  de  M.  de  Fourquevaux,  I,  166  (Paris,  1896). 


Chap.  V]  PERSISTENT  ANTAGONISM  539 

and,  in  1647,  the  Suprema  declared  that  nothing  seemed  sufficient 
to  repress  the  hatred  with  which  they  were  regarded,  in  support 
of  which  it  instanced  an  unjust  apportionment,  in  Cuenca,  of 
an  assessment  of  a  forced  loan.^  This  hostility  continued  to  the 
last,  even  though  the  decadence  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century  diminished  so  greatly  its  powers  of  oppression. 
A  defender  of  the  institution,  in  1803,  commences  by  deprecating 
the  hatred  which  had  pursued  it  from  the  beginning;  even  in  the 
present  age,  he  says,  of  greater  enlightenment,  there  is  crass 
ignorance  of  its  essential  principles  and  a  mortal  opposition  to 
its  existence.^ 

Thus,  notwithstanding  the  Spanish  abhorrence  of  Jews  and 
heretics,  the  dread  which  the  Inquisition  inspired  was  largely 
mingled  with  detestation,  arising  from  its  abuse  of  its  privileges 
in  matters  wholly  apart  from  its  functions  as  the  guardian  of 
the  faith. . 

1  Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  41-2  (Bibl.  nacionaJ,  MSS.,  D,  122).— Archive  de 
Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  23,  fol.  45,  57. 

^  Discurso  histori co-legal  sobre  el  Origen,  Progresos  y  Utilidad  del  Santo  Oficio, 
Introd.  pp.  i-iv,  p.  139  (VaUadoUd,  1803) 


APPENDIX. 


I. 

LIST  OF  TRIBUNALS. 


The  permanent  tribunals  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition  were  Toledo, 
Seville,'  Valladolid,  Corte  (Madrid),  Granada,  Cordova,  Murcia,  Llerena, 
Cuenca,  Santiago  (Galicia),  Logrono  and  Canaries,  under  the  crown 
of  Castile,  and  Saragossa,  Valencia,  Barcelona  and  Majorca  under 
the  crown  of  Aragon.  In  addition  were  Sicily,  Sardinia,  Mexico,  Lima 
and  Cartagena  de  las  Indias,  which  he  beyond  the  scope  of  the  present 
work. 

This  distribution  of  the  forces  of  the  Inquisition  was  not  reached 
until  experience  had  shown  the  most  effective  centres  of  action. 
Numerous  more  or  less  temporary  tribunals  were  erected  and  many 
changes  occurred  in  the  apportionment  of  territory.  The  following 
list  makes  no  pretension  to  absolute  completeness  but  contains  the 
result  of  such  allusions  as  I  have  met  in  the  documents. 


Alcaraz.  For  some  years  there  was  a  tribunal  fixed  at  Alcaraz. 
In  1495  Alonso  Hernandez,  presented  for  a  canonry,  is  qualified  as 
Inquisitor  of  Alcaraz  and,  in  1499,  Alonso  de  Torres  is  appointed  as 
inquisitor  there.* 

Army  and  Navy.  The  fleet  organized  for  the  Catholic  League  which 
won  at  Lepanto  seemed  to  require  a  tribunal  to  preserve  it  from  heresy 
and  Philip  II  procured  from  Pius  V  a  brief  of  July  23,  1571,  authorizing 
the  inquisitor-general  to  appoint  an  inquisitor  for  each  army  of  Philip 
II,  whether  by  land  or  sea.^  The  first  appointment  under  this  seems 
to  have  been  Rodrigo  de  Mendoza,  Inquisito)  of  Barcelona,  whose 
commission  as  Inquisidor  de  las  Galeras  is  cated  March  21,  1575, 


1  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Tj,  28.— Llorente,  Anales,  I,  252. 
'  Archive  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  1049. 

(541) 


542 


APPENDIX 


together  with  one  for  his  notary,  Domingo  de  Leon,  and  instructions 
as  to  his  duties.^  He  was  succeeded  by  Geronimo  Manrique,  who  cele- 
brated an  auto  de  fe  in  Messina.  After  him  was  Doctor  Juan  Bautista 
de  Cardona,  but  merely  as  commissioner,  who  served  for  two  years, 
when  Paramo,  writing  in  1598,  tells  us  that  the  fleets  w^ere  scattered 
and  the  office  ceased  to  exist.^  If  so,  it  was  levived  for,  in  1622,  we  are 
told  that  Fray  Martin  de  Vivanco,  chaplain  of  the  galleys  of  Sicily, 
was  appointed  Inquisidor  del  Mar  and,  in  1632,  it  is  stated  that  when 
a  Principe  del  Mar  was  appointed  he  took  with  him  an  inquisitor  and 
officials  and  all  prisoners  arrested  by  them  were  delivered  to  the  nearest 
tribunal  when  the  galleys  made  port.^ 

In  later  times  the  inquisitor-general  was  "Vicario  general  de  los 
Reales  Ejercitos  de  Mar  y  Tierra"  and  as  such  appointed  sub-delegates 
to  accompany  the  army,  with  the  necessary  powers.  The  furisdiccion 
castrense  enjoyed  by  miUtary  men  did  not  exempt  them  in  matters  of 
faith  from  the  Inquisition,  but  the  subdelegados  castrenses  seem  to  have 
possessed  no  judicial  powers,  and  debate  arose,  in  1793  and  again  in 
1806,  whether  they  or  the  episcopal  Ordinaries  should  be  called  in  to 
vote  with  the  inquisitors  in  the  cases  of  soldiers.* 

AviLA.  When  Torquemada  built  his  convent  of  San  Tomas  in  Avila 
he  provided  accommodations  for  an  Inquisition  and,  in  1590,  the 
prisoners  accused  of  the  murder  of  the  Santo  Nino  de  la  Guardia  were 
transferred  thither  from  the  tribunal  of  Segovia  for  trial.  It  continued 
to  exist  for  some  years  and  had  connection  with  Segovia,  for,  June  9, 
1499,  Francisco  Gonzalez  of  Fresneda  and  Juan  de  Monasterio  were 
appointed  inquisitors  of  Avila  and  Segovia,  residing  sometimes  in  one 
city  and  sometimes  in  the  other.^ 

Balaguer,  There  were  autos  de  fe  celebrated  in  Balaguer,  August 
15,  1490  and  June  10,  1493,  but  these  were  held  by  the  inquisitors  of 
Barcelona  as  they  did  in  Tarragona,  Gerona,  Perpignan  and  other 
places  in  their  district.  In  1517,  however,  there  would  seem  to  be  a 
tribunal  there  for  a  letter  of  the  Suprema  relates  to  the  murder  of  the 
assessor  of  the  Inquisition  of  Balaguer.  If  so,  it  was  probably  with- 
drawn in  consequence  for,  in  1518,  the  inquisitors  of  Barcelona  are 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  940,  fol.  58. 

^  Paramo,  pp.  224-6. 

^  Franchina,  Breve  Rapporto  della  Inquisizione  di  Sicilia,  p.  98. — Juan  G6inez 
de  Mora,  Relacion  del  Auto  de  Fe  celebrado  en  Madrid,  este  ano  de  1632  (Madrid, 
1632). 

*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  4,  n.  3,  fol  70;  Leg.  17, 
n.  3,  fol.  5. 

»  Boletin,  XV,  333-45;  XXIII,  415-16.— Llorente,  Anales,  I,  253. 


TRIBUNALS  543 

ordered  to  publish  edicts  against  those  who  molest  the  clergy  of  Bala- 
guer  for  observing  the  interdict  cast  upon  the  town.^ 

Barbastro.  As  early  as  1488  there  was  a  tribunal  with  inquisitors 
at  Barbastro,  but,  in  1521,  it  was  suppressed  and  incorporated  with 
Saragossa.^ 

Barcelona.  Established  in  1486.  It  claimed  jurisdiction  over  the 
free  Republic  of  Andorra,  which  was  included  by  Arevalo  de  Zuazo 
in  his  visitation  of  1595.  I^ong  after  Roussillon  and  Cerdagne  had 
been  retroceded  to  France,  the  Barcelona  inquisitors  in  1695  still 
styled  themselves  "  Inquisidores  Apostolicos  .  .  .  en  el  Prin- 
cipado  de  Cataluna  y  su  partido,  con  los  Condados  de  Rosellon  y  Cer- 
dana  y  los  Vails  de  Aran  y  Andorra."^     See  L:6rida,  Tarragona, 

TORTOSA,    BaLAGUER. 

Burgos.  There  was  originally  a  tribunal  in  Burgos  but,  in  the 
redistricting  by  Ximenes  it  was  included  in  Valladolid.  In  1605, 
Philip  III  transferred  the  tribunal  to  Burgos,  with  orders  to  the 
inquisitors  to  eject  any  occupants  of  buildings  that  they  might  find 
suited  to  their  purposes.  In  1622  it  was  still  rendering  yearly  reports 
of  cases  to  the  Suprema  but,  probably  about  1630,  it  returned  to 
Valladolid.  When,  in  1706,  Madrid  was  captured  by  the  Allies  under 
Galloway  and  Las  Minas,  the  court  fled  to  Burgos,  carrying  the  Inqui- 
sition thither,  but  its  stay  was  short  and  it  soon  returned  to  the  capital.* 

Cadiz.    See  Xeres. 

Calahorra.  a  tribunal  was  established  here  as  early  as  1493, 
when  it  celebrated  an  auto  at  Logrofio.  In  1499  it  alternated  between 
Calahorra  and  Durango.  In  the  redistricting  by  Ximenes  in  1509  it 
was  incorporated  with  Durango,  but  was  soon  re-established.  Cedulas 
of  1516,  1517,  and  1520  indicate  that  at  this  time  it  was  the  tribunal 
of  the  enormous  district  of  Valladolid,  but  in  1522  the  Inquisition  of 
Navarre  was  extended  over  Calahorra;  then  Navarre  and  Calahorra 
were  separated,  but  in  1540  there  was  a  redistribution,  and  Navarre 
and  the  Basque  Provinces  were  added  to  Calahorra.     In  1560  a  part 

*  Carbonell  de  Gestis  Hsereticor.  (Coll.  de  Doc.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  XXVIII, 
137,  139).— Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  72,  P.  i,  fol.  61;  P.  ii,  fol.  72, 
110. 

^  Bibl.  nacionale  de  France,  fonds  espanol,  80,  fol.  44.— Llorente,  Anales  II, 
242. 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  4. — 
Proceso  contra  Estevan  Ramoneda,  fol.  72  (MSS.  of  Am.  Philos.  Society). 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  1;  Leg.  1465,  fol.  32;  Lib.  56,  fol.  605, 
Llorente,  Afiales,  ii,  5. 


544  APPENDIX 

of  the  territory  of  Burgos  was  set  off  from  Valladolid  and  added  to 
Calahorra  and,  in  1570,  the  seat  of  the  tribunal  was  definitely  moved 
to  Logrono,  q.  v} 

CAiiATAYUD.  Calatayud  was  the  seat  of  an  intermittent  tribunal  at 
least  from  the  year  1488  for,  in  1502,  Ferdinand  speaks  of  Joan  de 
Aguaviva  who  for  fourteen  years  had  served  it  as  barber-surgeon 
whenever  it  resided  in  Calatayud  and  one  of  the  first  presentations  to 
a  prebend,  in  1488,  was  Martin  Marquez,  described  as  fiscal  of  the 
Inquisition  of  Calatayud.  A  letter  of  the  Suprema,  Jan.  22,  1519, 
addressed  to  the  "Inquisitor  of  Calatayud"  shows  that  it  was  still  in 
existence,  but  it  must  soon  afterwards  have  been  merged  into  Sara- 
gossa.^ 

Canaries.  The  zeal  of  Diego  de  Muros,  Bishop  of  Canaries,  did  not 
wait  for  the  extension  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition  over  his  diocese,  but 
led  him  to  establish  an  episcopal  one  by  proclamation  of  April  28,  1499. 
It  was  not  until  1504  that  Inquisitor-general  Deza  sent  Bartolome 
Lopez  de  Tribaldos  thither  to  establish  a  tribunal  at  Las  Palmas,  which 
seems  to  have  commenced  business  Oct.  28,  1505.  It  continued  thus 
to  the  end.^ 

Cartagena.     See  Murcia. 

CiUDAD  Real.  A  letter  of  Ferdinand,  Nov.  8,  1483,  announces  the 
appointment  of  Licenciados  Costana  and  de  Balthasar  as  inquisitors 
for  Ciudad  Real.  May  10,  1485,  Ferdinand  announces  the  transfer  of 
Costana  to  Toledo,  to  which  place  the  tribunal  was  removed.* 

CcJrdova.  a  tribunal  was  established  in  Cordova  as  early  as  1482, 
at  the  instance  of  its  bishop,  the  New  Christian  Alonso  de  Burgos.  Its 
district  comprised  the  bishoprics  of  Cordova  and  Jaen,  the  Abadia  de 
Alcala  la  Real,  the  Adelantamiento  of  Cazorla,  with  Ecija  and  Estepa, 
to  which  Granada  was  added  after  the  conquest.^  See  Granada  and 
Jaen. 

'  Llorente,  Anales,  I,  213,  252;  II,  3. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib. 
4,  fol.  1,  7,  104,  159,  162;  Lib.  5,  fol.  24;  Lib.  73,  fol.  211;  Lib.  76,  fol.  51,  53; 
Lib.  78,  fol.  216,  258;  Lib.  79,  fol.  17,  226;  Lib.  80,  fol.  1. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  2,  fol.  8;  Lib.  74,  fol.  120. — Informe 
de  Quesada  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Tj,  28). 

^  W.  de  Gray  Birch,  Catalogue  of  MSS.  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  Canary  Islands, 
I,  x^^,  5,  6  (London,  1903). 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisition,  Lib.  939,  fol.  62. 

*  Matute  y  Luquin,  Autos  de  Fe  de  Cordova,  pp.  1,  75. 


TRIBUNALS  545 

CoRTE.  The  tribunal  of  Madrid  was  technically  known  as  Corte. 
Madrid,  originally  a  town  of  no  special  importance,  belonged  to  the 
province  of  Toledo  and  was  naturally  under  the  jurisdiction  of  its 
tribunal.  As  the  royal  residence  under  Philip  II  and  eventually  the 
capital  of  the  kingdom  (except  during  the  brief  transfer  to  Valladolid, 
1600-1606)  it  fm-nished  a  large  part  of  the  business  of  Toledo,  Toledan 
inquisitors  came  there  to  make  investigations  and  even  to  try  cases, 
of  which  we  have  examples  in  1590  and  1592.^  Something  more  than 
this  was  felt  to  be  needed  and  the  Suprema  adopted  the  plan  of  calling 
inquisitors  from  other  places  to  commence  prosecutions  and  act  under 
its  instructions,  of  which  the  Licenciado  Flores,  Inquisitor  of  Murcia,  in 
1593,  and  Cifontes  de  Loarte,  Inquisitor  of  Granada,  in  1615,  are  exam- 
ples.^ The  presence  of  the  inquisitor-general  who  did  not  hesitate  to 
take  action  in  emergencies,  and  that  of  an  experienced  commissioner, 
together  with  the  frequent  sojourn  of  one  of  the  Toledo  inquisitors 
enabled  speedy  action  to  be  taken  when  requisite,  as  occurred  in  1621 
and  again  in  1624  and  seemed  to  render  superfluous  the  organization 
of  a  special  tribunal.^ 

Yet  the  want  of  it  was  felt,  especially  with  the  influx  of  Portuguese 
New  Christians  who  multiplied  in  the  capital.  As  the  pressure  increased 
Toledo  furnished  two  assistant  inquisitors  to  reside  in  Madrid,  thus 
establishing  a  kind  of  subordinate  court,  but  in  1637  it  was  reported 
that  the  establishment  of  a  tribunal  was  positively  resolved  upon,  with 
the  added  comment  that  this  would  sorely  vex  the  Toledans.*  To 
their  natural  opposition  is  doubtless  to  be  attributed  the  postponement 
of  what,  to  a  Spaniard  of  the  period,  would  seem  a  necessity  to  the 
capital.  It  cannot  have  been  long  after  this  that  one  was  organized 
for,  in  the  matter  of  the  confiscation  of  Juan  Cote,  commenced  in 
Toledo,  we  find  it,  September  10,  1640,  sitting  in  Madrid,  with  Fran- 
cisco Salgado  and  Juan  Adam  de  la  Parra  as  inquisitors.  In  the  same 
year  they  suggested  that  the  case  of  Benito  de  Valdepenas,  on  which 
they  were  engaged,  should  be  sent  to  Toledo  as  more  convenient  for  the 
witnesses,  which  was  accordingly  done.^  Toledan  influence  is  doubtless 
responsible  for  the  action  of  Arce  y  Reynoso,  soon  after  his  accession  in 
1643,  in  suppressing  the  new  tribunal  and  restoring  the  business  to 


*  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  Tom.  III. — Archive  hist,  nacional, 
Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Leg.  113,  n.  6. 

2  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218t>,  p.  206.— MSS.  of  Library  of 
Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  VII. 

3  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  Tom.  VI,  X. 

*  Rodriguez  de  Villa,  La  Corte  y  Monarquia  de  Espana,  p.  47. — Cartas  de 
Jesuitas  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  XIV,  6). 

»  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  Tom.  IX,  VL 

35 


546  APPENDIX 

Toledo.^  The  pressure,  however,  became  too  great  and  Arce  y  Rey- 
noso  was  obliged  to  reverse  his  action.  The  date  of  the  re-establish- 
ment may  safely  be  assumed  as  1650,  for  a  list  of  penitents,  reconciled 
by  Corte  from  the  beginning,  starts  with  three  in  1651  and  their  trials 
can  scarce  have  been  commenced  later  than  1650.^  Yet  the  relations 
between  Toledo  and  Madrid  continued  intimate;  in  1657,  Lorenzo  de 
Sotomayor  styles  himself  as  "  Inquisidor  Apostolico  de  la  Inquisicion 
de  la  Ciudad  y  Reyno  de  Toledo  y  asistente  de  Corte;"  to  the  end  of 
the  century  the  former  always  alluded  to  Corte  as  a  despacho  or  office 
and  not  as  a  tribunal,  and  Corte  seems  to  have  sent  its  convicts  to 
Toledo  for  their  sentences  to  be  published  in  the  autos  de  fe.^  Its 
jurisdiction  was  strictly  limited  to  the  city,  while  the  surrounding 
country  remained  with  Toledo.  In  some  respects  its  organization  was 
peculiar.  About  1750  we  are  informed  that  its  inquisitors  were  drawn 
from  other  tribunals  who  continued  them  on  their  pay-rolls,  their 
places  being  taken  by  appointees  who  served  without  salary  until  a 
vacancy  occurred.  Selection  to  serve  in  Corte  was  regarded  as  a  pro- 
motion, leading  to  a  place  in  the  Suprema  or  to  a  bishopric,  although 
the  incumbent  drew  only  the  salary  from  his  former  tribunal  with  a 
Christmas  propina  of  a  hundred  ducats.  It  had  no  receiver;  the 
Suprema  paid  its  expenses  and  presumably  collected  its  fines  and  con- 
fiscations.* 

CuENCA.  Murcia  and  Cuenca  were  originally  under  one  tribunal. 
Some  trouble  apparently  arose,  possibly  connected  with  the  episcopal 
Ordinaries,  for  Ximenes  ordered,  January  22, 1512,  that  cases  originat- 
ing in  Murcia  should  be  taken  to  Cuenca  to  be  voted  on  and  vice  versa. 
Llorente  says  that  in  1513  they  were  separated  and  Cuenca  formed  an 
independent  tribunal,  but  documents  as  late  as  1519  show  them  still 
connected,  until,  in  1520,  we  find  Cuenca  celebrating  an  auto.  A  letter 
of  March  7, 1522,  states  that  the  pope  has  given  to  Cuenca  the  see  of 
Sigtienza,  without  taking  it  from  Toledo,  because  Toledo  has  never 
visited  it  although  ordered  to  do  so,  and  is  not  to  do  so  in  future. 
Then,  May  31,  1533,  the  Suprema  says  that  Toledo  can  exercise  juris- 
diction there  without  giving  Cuenca  cause  of  complaint,  and,  in  1560, 
Sigiienza  was  restored  to  Toledo,  yet  in  1584  we  find  Cuenca  exercising 
jurisdiction  as  far  north  as  Soria.  There  would  seem  to  have  been 
some  connection  maintained  between  Murcia  and  Cuenca  for,  in  1746, 


»  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  146,  n.  49. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  1024,  fol.  28. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  1474,  fol.  67. — Archivo  hist,  nacional, 
Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 

*  Archivo  de  Alcala,  Estado,  Leg.  2843. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion, 
Leg.  1474,  fol.  15. 


TRIBUNALS  547 

the  former,  in  enumerating  its  personnel,  specifies  nine  califieadores  in 
Murcia  and  four  in  Cuenca/ 

Daroca.  There  would  appear  to  have  been  for  a  time  a  tribunal 
in  Daroca  for,  in  the  accounts  of  Juan  Royz,  receiver  of  Aragon,  for 
1498  there  is  an  item  of  expenditure  on  the  prison  of  the  Inquisition 
there,  which  was  duly  passed.^ 

DuRANGO.  See  Calahorra.  As  defined  by  Ximenes,  in  1509, 
Durango  had  jurisdiction  over  Biscay,  Guipilzcoa,  Alava  and  Cala- 
horra, with  some  neighboring  districts.^ 

Estella.     See  Navarre, 

Galicia,  also  known  as  Santiago.  The  earliest  allusion  to  this 
tribunal  occurs  in  a  commission  issued  at  Coruiia,  May  20,  1520,  to 
Doctor  Gonzalo  Maldonado  as  Inquisitor  of  Santiago.  It  was  prob- 
ably some  time  before  the  tribunal  was  in  working  order  but  in  1527  it 
had  caused  sufficient  alarm  for  the  Suprema  to  write  to  JoSo  III  of 
Portugal  asking  for  the  arrest  and  surrender  of  those  who  had  fied  from 
it  and,  in  the  same  year,  a  warrant  for  three  hundred  ducats  was  drawn 
to  be  distributed  among  the  inquisitors  and  officials  of  the  Inquisition 
of  Galicia.  This  was  followed  by  a  similar  payment  in  1528,  showing 
that  the  tribunal  was  not  self-sustaining."  Apparently  the  harvest 
was  scanty  and  the  tribunal  was  allowed  to  lapse,  until  the  scare  about 
Protestantism  called  attention  to  the  ports  of  the  North-west  as  afford- 
ing ingress  to  heretics  and  their  books,  for  we  hear  nothing  more  about 
it  until  1562,  when  Philip  II,  in  letters  of  June  2nd  and  26th  informs 
the  governor  and  officials  of  Galicia  that  Valdes  had  despatched  Dr. 
Quixano  there  as  inquisitor;  they  are  no  longer  to  prosecute  cases  of 
heresy  as  they  have  been  doing  but  are  to  lend  him  all  aid  and  favor 
and  are  to  allow  him  to  dispose  as  he  pleases  of  the  seats  in  his  public 
functions,  without  disputes  as  to  precedence.  In  1566  we  hear  of  Bar- 
tolome  de  Leon  as  receiver  there,  which  would  indicate  that  it  was  at 
work  and  was  making  collections.^  Still,  it  had  a  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, for  it  was  discontinued  early  in  1568,  but  it  was  re-established 

1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  3,  fol..84,  440,  445,  454;  Lib.  4, 
fol.  9;  Lib.  933;  Lib.  939,  fol.  63, 139;  Lib.  9,  fol.  29;  Leg.  1157,  fol.  144;  Inquisi- 
cion de  Corte,  Leg.  359,  fol.  3. — Llorente,  Anales,  II,  3. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  1. 
'  Llorente,  Anales,  II,  4. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  940,  fol.  38,  39,  53;  Lib.  76',  fol.  74. 

»  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  930,  fol.  127;  Lib.  926,  fol.  141;  Lib. 
940,  fol.  101.— Cf.  Novls.  Recop.  Lib.  ii,  Tit.  vii,  ley  1,  nota  9. 


548  APPENDIX 

within  a  few  years,  if  Llorente  is  correct  in  saying  that  its  first  auto  de 
fe  was  celebrated  in  1573.  A  letter  of  Dr.  Alva,  its  inquisitor,  October 
31,  1577,  speaks  of  having,  in  the  previous  year,  sentenced  Guillaume 
le  Meunier,  he  being  the  only  inquisitor,  with  the  advice  of  a  single 
consultor,  showing  that  the  tribunal  was  sparingly  equipped/  In  later 
years  it  became  one  of  the  active  tribunals  of  the  kingdom.  Its  dis- 
trict comprised  Coruna,  Pontevedro,  Orense  and  Lugo. 

Granada.  Granada,  after  its  capture,  was  included  in  the  inquisi- 
torial district  of  Cordova  until,  in  1526,  the  tribunal  of  Jaen  was  trans- 
ferred thither.^ 

Guadalupe.  A  temporary  tribunal  was  organized  here  in  1485 
which  during  its  brief  existence  was  exceedingly  efficient  (see  p.  171). 

Huesca.     See  L^rida. 

Jaca.  a  tribunal  apparently  existed  here,  which  was  annexed  to 
Saragossa  in  1521.^ 

Jaen.  A  tribunal  must  have  been  established  here  about  1483,  for 
two  of  its  inquisitors  took  part  in  the  assembly  of  Seville  which  framed 
the  Instructions  of  1484.  It  seems  to  have  been  discontinued,  for  Sep- 
tember 2,  1501,  Ferdinand  ordered  a  certain  Dona  Beatriz  of  Jaen  to 
abandon  her  house  to  the  inquisitors  sent  thither,  and  to  seek  other 
quarters  until  they  should  finish  the  business  that  took  them  there. 
This  indicates  that  only  a  temporary  tribunal  was  intended  but  the  sit- 
uation was  conveniently  central  and  it  was  one  of  those  retained  by 
Ximenes  in  his  reorganization  of  1509,  when  he  assigned  to  it  the  dis- 
tricts of  Jaen  and  Guadix,  with  Alcaraz,  Cazorla  and  Beas.  It  was 
still  in  existence  in  1525,  as  shown  by  a  royal  letter  of  that  date,  but 
in  1526  it  was  suppressed  and  united  with  Cordova,  the  tribunal  being 
transferred  to  Granada.  In  1547,  the  official  title  of  the  tribunal  was 
Cordoba  y  Jaen.  Rodrigo  tells  us  that  it  was  re-established  inde- 
pendently in  1545,  but  this  is  evidently  an  error  and  the  name  does 
not  reappear  in  subsequent  lists  of  tribunals.* 

Leon.  In  1501  we  hear  of  "inquisitors  of  the  province  of  Leon," 
whose  district  cannot  have  been  confined  to  that  province,  for  Ferdi- 


1  Schafer,  Beitrage,  II,  76,  77. — Llorente,  Hist.  crlt.  Cap.  xlvi,  Art.  i,  n.  11. 
'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  926,  foL  80. 

*  Llorente,  Anales,  II,  242. 

*  Arguello,  fol.  1. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  1;  Lib.  929,  foL 
297;  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol,  164.— Llorente,  Anales,  II,  2.— Rodrigo,  Hist,  verda- 
dera,  II,  261. — Juan  Gomez  de  Mora,  Relacion  del  Auto  de  la  Fe  de  1632. 


TRIBUNALS  549 

nand,  writing  September  2nd  to  "Cousin  Duke"  tells  him  that  they 
have  occasion  to  go  to  his  city  of  Coria  (Extremadura)  and  asks  that 
they  may  occupy  his  house  while  there.  In  1514,  also  there  is 
allusion  to  the  receiver  and  alguazil  of  the  Inquisition  of  Leon.* 
Apparently  the  term  is  a  synonym  of  the  tribunal  of  Valladolid. 

L^RiDA.  The  provinces  of  Huesca  in  Aragon  and  Lerida  and  Urgel 
in  Catalonia  were  united  as  an  inquisitorial  district  at  least  as  early  as 
1490,  when  we  hear  of  "the  inquisitors  of  Huesca  and  Lerida"  taking 
testimony.  In  1498,  a  letter  of  Ferdinand,  October  8th,  announces  the 
transfer  of  Urgel  to  Barcelona.  Allusions  to  the  tribunal  continue  to 
occur  in  the  correspondence  of  Ferdinand,  who,  in  1502,  called  away 
the  inquisitor,  as  there  was  so  little  to  do;  Saragossa  would  attend  to 
heresy  and  only  the  financial  officials  need  be  left.  It  was  not  discon- 
tinued however.  In  1514,  there  was  an  attempt  to  murder  the  inquis- 
itor. Canon  Antist,  but  in  1519  he  is  still  addressed  as  inquisitor  of 
Lerida.  In  this  same  year,  however,  Charles  V,  in  a  letter  of  Jan- 
uary 22nd,  speaks  of  the  tribunals  of  Huesca,  Tarazona  and  Lerida 
having  been  united  with  that  of  Saragossa,  and,  when  the  people  of 
Huesca  complained,  in  the  Cortes  of  Saragossa,  of  their  citizens  being 
carried  away  for  trial,  he  ordered,  under  pain  of  a  thousand  florins,  that 
no  one  should  interfere  with  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Saragossa  tribunal. 
October  9th  an  inspector  reported  that  there  was  no  need  of  a  receiver 
or  other  officials  there,  whereupon  they  were  all  dismissed.  In  1532, 
however,  the  inquisitors  of  Saragossa  undertook  to  appoint  a  receiver 
for  Lerida,  but  were  told  by  the  Suprema  to  cancel  it  as  this  was  a 
function  of  the  crown.^ 

LoGRo5fo.  In  1570,  as  we  have  seen,  the  tribunal  of  Calahorra  was 
shifted  to  Logrono,  which,  in  1690,  defines  its  territory  as  the  whole 
kingdom  of  Navarre,  the  bishopric  of  Calahorra  and  la  Calzada,  Biscay, 
Guipuzcoa,  Burgos  along  the  mountains  of  Oca  and  the  sea-coast  as 
far  as  San  Vicente  de  la  Barquera,  thus  comprising  the  modern  prov- 
inces of  Navarre,  Guipuzcoa,  Biscay,  Santander,  Alava,  Logrofio  and 
a  large  part  of  Burgos.^ 

Llerena.  Originally  Extremadura  and  Leon  were  combined.  In 
1500,  Enrique  Paez  is  receiver  for  the  sees  of  Plasencia,  Coria  and 
Badajoz  and  the  Province  of  Leon.     In  1509  Ximenes  assigned  to 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  1;  Lib.  3,  fol.  381. 

*  Bibl.  nationale  de  France,  fonds  espagnol,  80,  fol.  24,  26. — Archivo  de 
Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  1;  Lib.  72,  P.  i,  fol.  2,  177,  198;  Lib.  9,  fol.  24,  68; 
Lib.  77,  fol.  53. 

*  Archivo  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  498, 


550  APPENDIX 

Llerena  as  its  district,  Plasencia,  Coria,  Badajoz  and  the  lands  of  the 
military  Orders,  but  as  late  as  1516  it  is  spoken  of  as  the  Inquisition 
of  Leon,  Plasencia,  Coria  and  Badajoz.  Its  original  seat  was> Llerena 
but,  in  1516,  it  was  transferred  to  Plasencia  and  the  receiver  was 
ordered  to  sell  the  houses  purchased  at  Llerena  for  the  prison  because 
others  will  be  wanted  for  the  purpose  at  Plasencia.  It  was  migratory, 
however  and,  in  1520,  the  people  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  Coria  and  Merida 
were  notified  that  it  was  about  to  leave  Plasencia  and  wherever  it  went 
accommodations  must  be  provided  for  lodgement,  audience  chamber 
and  prisons.  Finally  it  settled  permanently  at  Llerena  and,  towards 
the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Zapata  speaks  of  it  as  the  first 
tribunal  of  the  kingdom,  with  the  widest  jurisdiction,^ 

Madrid.     See  Corte, 

Medina  del  Campo.  The  great  importance  of  Medina  del  Campo  as 
a  centre  of  trade  rendered  inevitable  its  selection  as  the  seat  of  a  tri- 
bunal at  an  early  period.  In  1486  it  was  fully  furnished  with  three 
inquisitors  and  an  assessor,  the  Abbot  of  Medina  serving  as  Ordinary. 
In  1516  we  find  it  incorporated  with  Valladohd.  When  the  court 
moved  to  Valladolid,  the  buildings  of  the  Inquisition  were  wanted  for 
its  accommodation  and  the  tribunal,  in  June  1601,  was  unceremoni- 
ously sent  to  Medina,  where  Dr.  Martin  de  Bustos  was  turned  out  of 
his  house  to  lodge  it.  Its  stay  was  short,  for  in  1605,  as  we  have  seen, 
it  was  transferred  to  Burgos  and  there  is  no  later  trace  of  a  tribunal  at 
Medina.^ 

MuRCiA,  also  known  as  Cartagena.  See  also  Cuenca.  Murcia  was 
a  seat  of  one  of  the  early  tribunals,  comprising  the  sees  of  Murcia  and 
Cartagena.  Cuenca,  which  was  attached  to  it  in  the  redistribution  by 
Ximenes  in  1509,  was  separated  about  1520.  Oran,  some  time  after 
its  conquest  by  Ximenes,  was  placed  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Murcia. 
The  see  of  Orihuela,  although  belonging  to  Valencia,  on  its  suppression 
about  1510,  was  united  to  that  of  Cartagena  and  thus  fell  under  the 
tribunal  of  Murcia,  where  it  remained  after  the  restoration  to  episcopal 
honors  in  1564.^  The  tribunal  of  Orihuela  naturally  followed  the  same 
course  on  its  suppression. 


*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  1;  Lib.  3,  fol.  447;  Lib.  5,  fol.  9,  27. 
■ — Llorente,  Anales,  II,  3. — Miscelanea  de  Zapata  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  XI,  59). 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  unico,  fol.  28. — 
Archivo  g6n.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Regist.  3684,  fol.  94. — Archivo  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,  Lib.  4,  fol.  1;  Legajo  1465,  fol.  31,  32. — Cabrera,  Relaciones,  p.  107. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  4,  fol.  95,  96;  Lib.  3,  fol.  453. — 
Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  61. — Gams,  Series  Episco- 
porum,  p.  55. 


TRIBUNALS  551 

Navarre.  After  the  conquest  of  Navarre,  in  1512,  a  tribunal  was 
established  in  Pampeluna,  where  it  did  not  long  remain.  Then,  for  a 
short  period  it  was  transferred  to  Estella.  In  1515  we  find  it  in  Tudela, 
where  Ferdinand  orders  the  Archdeacon  of  Almazan  to  visit  it  as  it  is 
in  much  need  of  reform  and,  soon  afterwards,  he  asks  for  a  delegation 
of  episcopal  power,  as  Tudela  was  only  a  deanery.  It  was  quartered 
in  the  convent  of  San  Francisco,  to  relieve  which,  in  1518,  the  Suprema 
ordered  appropriate  buildings  to  be  obtained.  In  1521  and  1522  there 
was  talk  of  removing  it  to  Pampeluna;  then  it  was  extended  over  Cala- 
horra;  soon  afterwards  they  were  separated  but  finally,  in  1540,  they 
were  united  and  so  remained.  Soon  after  the  transfer  to  Logrono  we 
find  the  tribunal  describing  itself  as  "  en  todo  el  Reyno  de  Navarra, 
Obispado  de  Calahorra  y  la  Calzada  y  su  distrito."^ 

Navy.     See  Army. 

Oran.  Paramo  tells  us  that  when  Ximenes  conquered  Oran  he 
commissioned  Fray  Yedra  as  inquisitor  there.  Llorente  places  this  in 
1516  and  calls  the  inquisitor  Martin  de  Baydacar,  Ximenes's  provisor. 
At  that  time,  however,  there  could  have  been  no  tribunal  there  for, 
July  9,  1516  the  Governor  Lope  Hurtado  de  Mendoza  was  ordered  to 
discover  and  punish  those  who  were  impeding  the  sale  of  property  for 
the  Inquisition,  work  which  would  have  been  entrusted  to  the  tribunal 
had  there  been  one.  By  this  time  it  had  probably  been  suppressed  and 
placed  under  Murcia.^ 

Orihuela.  According  to  Llorente,  Ferdinand,  Aug.  7, 1507,  united 
the  tribunal  of  the  bishopric  of  Orihuela  to  Valencia,  which  would  infer 
its  previous  existence.  It  was  reorganized  in  1515,  when  Bishop 
Mercader  appointed  Pedro  de  los  Rios  as  inquisitor  and  he  was  sent 
there  with  a  staff  of  officials,  and  the  magistrates  were  ordered  to  pro- 
vide quarters  for  "el  tiempo  que  fuere  menester."  This  indicates  that 
the  tribunal  w^as  not  expected  to  be  permanent  and  it  was  probably 
not  long  afterwards  that  it  was  united  with  Murcia,  q.  v.^ 

OsuNA.  In  1488,  among  the  presentations  to  prebends  is  one  of 
Pedro  Sanchez,  qualified  as  Inquisitor  of  Osuna.*    Such  tribunal  can 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  3,  fol.  316,  366;  Lib.  72,  P.  i,  fol.  116; 
Lib.  73,  fol.  142,  247,  248.— Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Leg. 
498. 

'  Pdramo,  p.  159. — Llorente,  Afiales,  II,  91.— Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisi- 
cion, Lib.  3,  fol.  453. 

^  Llorente,  Anales,  II,  5. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  3,  fol.  332, 
333. 

*  Informs  de  Quesada  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Tj,  28). 


552  APPENDIX 

only  have  been  short-lived  and  must  speedily  have  been  incorporated 
with  that  of  Seville. 

Pampeluna.    See  Navarre. 

Perpignan.  August  9,  1495  an  auto  de  fe  was  celebrated  in  Per- 
pignan,  but  it  was  held  by  the  inquisitors  of  Barcelona.  In  1518  there 
was  only  a  commissioner  there  but,  in  1524,  there  was  a  tribunal,  with 
Juan  Navardu  as  inquisitor  and  Antonio  Saliteda  as  secretary.  It  was 
not  permanent  however.  In  1566,  when  de  Soto  Salazar  was  sent  on 
his  visitation  to  Barcelona  he  was  instructed  to  ascertain  and  report 
promptly  details  for  the  benefit  of  the  inquisitor  about  to  be  sent  to 
Perpignan  to  reside  for  the  future  and  what  officials  should  be  pro- 
vided for  him.  It  is  doubtful  whether  this  intention  was  carried  out; 
in  any  event  it  was  but  transitory.^ 

Plasencia.     See  Llerena. 

Santiago.     See  Galicia. 

Saragossa,  Established  in  1484,  the  tribunal  gradually  absorbed 
all  the  minor  tribunals,  but  parted  with  Teruel  to  Valencia.  See  Bar- 
BASTRO,  Calatayud,  Daroca,  Jaca,  Lerida,  Tarazona,  Teruel. 

Segovia.  Segovia  claimed  the  honor  of  being  among  the  earliest 
cities,  after  Seville,  to  possess  a  tribunal,  but  there  was  no  representa- 
tive from  there  among  the  inquisitors  assembled  to  frame  the  Instruc- 
tions of  1484,  owing  doubtless  to  the  resistance  of  the  bishop  Juan 
Arias  Davila.^  One  must  have  been  established  soon  afterwards  for, 
in  1490,  the  prisoners  accused  of  the  murder  of  the  Santo  Nino  de  la 
Guardia  were  on  trial  there  when  Torquemada  transferred  them  to 
Avila.  (See  Avila.)  In  the  redistribution  by  Ximenes,  in  1509, 
Segovia  was  incorporated  with  Valladolid,  but,  in  1544  and  again  in 
1599,  the  inquisitors  of  Toledo  include  it  in  their  enumeration  of  their 
jurisdictions.^ 

SiGiJENZA.  A  tribunal  was  early  established  in  Sigiienza  which  must 
have  been  busy  if  we  may  believe  the  statement  that  at  an  auto  de  fe 
in  1494  it  relaxed  a  hundred  and  forty-nine  victims  to  the  secular  arm. 


'  Carbonell  de  Gestis  Hseret.  {op.  cit.  XXVIII,  83). — Archive  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,  Lib.  72,  P.  ii,  fol.  57,  59;  Lib.  930,  fol.  40;  Lib.  13,  fol.  372. 

'  Bergenroth,  Calendar  of  Spanish  State  Papers,  I,  xlv  (London,  1862). 

^  Colmenares,  Historia  de  Segovia,  Cap.  xxxiv,  1 18. — Padre  Fidel  Fita(Boletin, 
XXIII,  415). — Llorente,  Anales,  II,  3. — Proceso  contra  Mari  Naranja;  Proceso 
contra  Catalina  Machado  (MSS.  penes  me). 


TRIBUNALS  553 

In  1506,  Deza  dismissed  the  officials  for  the  reason  that  it  was  about 
to  be  united  with  Toledo,  a  merger  ratified  by  Ximines  in  1509.  Toledo 
neglected  it  and  it  was  transferred  to  Cuenca,  q.  v.  In  the  eighteenth 
century  there  would  appear  to  be  some  kind  of  subordinate  tribunal 
there,  for  about  1750,  Saragossa,  in  a  report  of  its  personnel,  states 
that  one  of  its  five  inquisitors  is  assisting  at  Sigiienza.^ 

Tarazona.  a  tribunal  established  here  in  the  early  period  was 
merged  into  that  of  Saragossa  in  1519.^ 

Tarragona.  When,  in  1643,  the  inquisitors  of  Barcelona  were 
ejected,  they  were,  after  some  delay,  sent  to  open  their  tribunal  at 
Tarragona,  where  they  remained  until  the  suppression  of  the  Catalan 
rebellion  in  1652." 

Teruel.  In  1485  a  tribunal  was  established  in  Teruel  after  some 
resistance.  At  what  time  it  was  transferred  to  Valencia  does  not 
appear,  but  a  cedula  of  October  2,  1502  is  addressed  to  the  inquisitors 
of  Valencia  residing  in  Teruel  and  Albarracin,  showing  that  it  was  then 
subordinate  to  Valencia,  In  1518  it  was  discontinued  and  the  district 
was  subjected  to  the  direct  jurisdiction  of  the  Valencian  tribunal,  but 
Cardinal  Adrian,  by  a  provision  of  Nov.  21st  of  the  same  year,  trans- 
ferred it  to  Saragossa  and  then,  March  3, 1519  restored  it  to  Valencia. 
This  was  felt  by  Aragon  as  a  grievance  and,  at  the  Cortes  of  Monzon, 
in  1533  it  asked  that  Teruel  and  Albarracin  should  be  restored  to  the 
Saragossa  tribunal,  but  the  request  was  peremptorily  refused  and 
they  remained  subject  to  Valencia.* 

Toledo.  In  1485  the  tribunal  of  Ciudad  Real  was  transferred  to 
Toledo.  At  first  the  limits  of  its  district  seem  not  to  be  clearly  defined 
for,  in  1489  the  inquisitors  were  told  to  go  to  Guadalajara  and  Ferdi- 
nand ordered  the  local  authorities  to  show  them  favor  and  allow  them 
to  make  arrests.  See  Corte,  Cuenca,  Segovia,  Sigijenza,  Valla- 
DOLiD  for  sundry  changes  in  its  district.  In  1565  the  official  designation 
is  the  city  and  archbishopric  of  Toledo,  the  city  and  bishopric  of 


1  Llorente,  Anales,  I,  217,  317,  II,  3.— Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de 
Corte,  Leg.  359,  fol.  1. 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  9,  fol.  24;  Lib.  926,  fol.  141. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  65,  fol.  31,  50;;  Lib.  36,  fol.  74. — 
Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Leg.  9,  n.  2,  fol.  323. 

*  Archivo  gen.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  Regist.  3684. — Archivo  de  Simancas, 
Inquisicion,  Lib.  2,  fol.  16;  Lib.  72,  P.  ii,  fol.  40,  169;  Lib.  74,  fol.  133;  Inquisicion 
de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  47,  48. 


554  APPENDIX 

Sigiienza  and  the  bishoprics  of  Avila  and  Segovia,  which  apparently- 
remained  permanent,  except  the  detachment  of  Madrid/ 

ToRTOSA.  For  some  reason  the  bishopric  of  Tortosa,  although  part 
of  Catalonia,  was  subject  to  the  tribunal  of  Valencia.  When,  in  1697, 
Vendome  captured  Barcelona,  the  tribunal  emigrated  to  Tortosa  and 
established  itself  in  the  Colegio  Imperial.  Although  peace  was  declared 
soon  afterwards  it  remained  in  Tortosa  at  least  until  1700  and  pre- 
sumably stayed  until  the  conclusion  of  the  War  of  Succession,  when  it 
was  reinstated  in  Barcelona  in  1715.^ 

TuDELA.     See  Navarre. 

Valencia.  The  old  Inquisition  of  Valencia  was  reorganized  in  1484, 
and  continued  to  the  end.  As  seen  above,  it  parted  with  Orihuela  to 
Murcia,  obtaining  Teruel  and  Albarracin  from  Saragossa  and  Tortosa 
from  Barcelona. 

Valladolid.  a  tribunal  was  assigned  to  Valladolid  in  1485,  but 
did  not  get  into  working  order  until  1488.  After  this  it  was  suspended 
to  be  revived  in  1499,  as  appears  from  a  letter  of  Isabella,  Dec.  24, 
1498.  The  northern  provinces  of  Spain  were  comparatively  free  from 
heresy  and  Ximenes,  in  his  reorganization  of  1509,  assigned  to  Valla- 
dolid the  enormous  district  comprising  the  sees  of  Burgos,  Osma, 
Palencia,  Segovia,  Avila,  Salamanca,  Zamora,  Leon,  Oviedo  and 
Astorga  and  the  abbeys  of  ValladoUd,  Medina  del  Campo  and  Sahagun. 
In  1516  the  enumeration  is  the  same  except  the  omission  of  Zamora 
and  the  addition  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo  and  Calahorra.  Roughly  speak- 
ing, it  may  be  assumed  to  comprise  the  whole  of  the  provinces  of  Old 
Castile,  Leon  and  Asturias.  Valdes,  August  8,  1560,  repeated  April  12, 
1562  made  over  the  whole  of  this  to  Toledo,  but  the  grant  can  only 
have  been  temporary  for,  in  1565  the  Toledan  inquisitors  described 
themselves  as  of  the  city  and  archbishoprics  of  Toledo,  the  city  and 
bishopric  of  Sigiienza,  with  the  bishoprics  of  Avila  and  Segovia,  and  in 
1579  we  find  the  inquisitors  of  Valladolid  styling  themselves  inquisitors 
of  the  kingdoms  of  Castile  and  Leon  and  the  principality  of  Asturias. 
This  enormous  district  it  continued  to  retain,  subject  to  the  easternmost 
portion  detached  to  Calahorra  or  liOgrono  and  to  its  translation  in  1601 


1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  939,  fol.  62.— MSS.  of  Library  of 
Univ.  of  HaUe,  Yc,  20,  Tom.  VIII. 

^  Proceso  contra  Ignacia  ;  contra  Estevanillo  F.  (MSS.  of  Am.  Philos. 

Society). — Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Seccion  Varios,  Leg. 
13. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Sala  39,  Leg.  4,  fol.  23. 


TRIBUNALS  555 

to  Medina  del  Campo  and  thence  to  Burgos,  from  which  it  returned  to 
Valladolid,  probably  about  1630/ 

Xeres.  In  1495,  Rodrigo  Lucero  is  described  as  Inquisitor  of  Xeres. 
In  1499  the  sovereigns  appointed  Alonso  de  Guevara  Inquisitor  of 
Cadiz  and  Xeres.  The  tribunal  continued  there  for  some  time.  In 
1515  Ferdinand  alludes  to  Luis  de  Riba  Martin  "our  late  receiver  in  the 
Inquisition  of  Xeres,"  who  in  dying  had  left  to  the  treasury  a  legacy 
of  30,000  mrs.  for  the  relief  of  his  conscience.^  I  have  met  no  later 
reference  to  it  and  probably  it  was  soon  afterwards  merged  into  the 
tribunal  of  Seville. 

1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  1 ;  Lib.  4,  fol.  1 ;  Lib.  929,  fol.  63.— 
MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  VIII.— Llorente,  Anales,  II,  3.— 
Bibl.  Rationale  de  France,  fonds  espagnol,  354,  fol.  242. 

»  Informe  de  Quesada  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Tj.,  28).— Llorente,  Anales,  I, 
252, — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Lib.  3,  fol.  423. 


II. 


LIST  OF  INQUISITORS-GENERAL. 


1483.  Thomas  de  Torquemada.     Appointed  in  1483.     Died  Sept.  16, 

1498. 
1491.  Miguel  de  Morillo  is  also  inquisitor-general  in  1491. 

Additional  Inquisitors-general,  Appointed  in  1494. 

1494.  Martin  Ponce  de  Leon,  Archbishop  of  Messina.    Died  in  1500. 
Inigo  Manrique,  Bishop  of  Cordova.    Died  March  4,  1496. 
Francisco  Sanchez  de  la  Fuente,  Bishop  of  Avila.    Died  Sept., 

1498. 
Alonso  Suarez  de  Fuentelsaz,  Bishop  of  Jaen.    Resigned  in  1504. 
Died  Nov.  5,  1520. 
1498.  Diego  Deza,  Archbishop  of  Seville.     Commissioned  Nov.  24, 
1498,  for  Castile,  Leon  and  Granada,  and  Sept.  1,  1499,  for 
all  Spain.    Resigned  in  1507.    Died  July  9,  1523. 

Separation  of  Inquisitions  of  Castile  and  Aragon. 


Castile. 
1507.  Francisco  Ximenes  de  Cis- 
neros,  Cardinal  and  Arch- 
bishop of  Toledo.  Com- 
missioned June  5,  1507. 
Died  Nov.  8,  1517. 


Aragon. 

1507.  Juan  Enguera,  Bishop  of 
Vich  (of  Lerida  in  1511). 
Commissioned  June  6, 
1507.  Died  Feb.  14, 
1513. 

1513.  Luis  Mercader,  Bishop  of 
Tortosa.  Commissioned 
July  15,  1513.  Died  June 
1,  1516. 
Fray  Juan  Pedro  de  Poul, 
Dominican  Provincial  of 
Aragon,  also  commis- 
sioned by  Leo  X.  Died 
in  1516. 

1516.  Adrian  of  Utrecht,  Cardi- 
nal and  Bishop  of  Tor- 
tosa. Commissioned  Nov. 
14,  1516. 


(556) 


LIST  OF  INQUISITORS-GENERAL  557 


Reunion  of  Inquisitions  of  Castile  and  Aragon. 

1518.  Cardinal  Adrian  of  Utrecht.  Commissioned  March  14,  1518. 
Elected  to  papacy  Jan.  9,  1522.  Continued  to  act  until  his 
departure  for  Rome  from  Tarragona  Aug.  4,  1522. 

1523.  Alfonso  Manrique,  Cardinal  and  Archbishop  of  Seville.  Com- 
missioned Sept.  10,  1523.    Died  Sept.  28,  1538. 

1539.  Juan  Pardo  de  Tavera,  Cardinal  and  Archbishop  of  Toledo. 
Appointed  June  10,  1539.  Commissioned  Nov.  7,  1539.  Took 
possession  Dec.  7,  1539.    Died  Aug.  1,  1545. 

1546.  Francisco  Garcia  de  Loaysa,  Archbishop  of  Seville.     Commis- 

sioned Feb.  18,  1546.    Took  possession  March  29,  1546.  Died 
April  22,  1546. 

1547.  Fernando  Valdes,  Archbishop  of  Seville.     Commissioned  Jan. 

20,  1547.    Took  possession  Feb.  19,  1547.    Resigned  in  1566. 
Died  Dec.  9,  1568. 
1566.  Diego  Espinosa,  Cardinal  and  Bishop  of  Sigiienza.     Commis- 
sioned Sept.  8,  1566.    Took  possession  Dec.  4,  1566.    Died 
Sept.  15,  1572. 

1572.  Pedro  Ponce  de  Leon  y  Cordova,  Bishop  of  Plasencia.    Commis- 

sioned Dec.   7,   1572.     Did  not  take  possession;  his  brief 
arrived  four  hours  after  his  death,  Jan.  17,  1573. 

1573.  Caspar  de  Quiroga,  Cardinal  and  Archbishop  of  Toledo.    Com- 

missioned April  20,  1573.     Took  possession  May  28,  1573. 
Died  Nov.  12,  1594. 

1595.  Geronimo  Manrique  de  Lara,  Bishop  of  Avila.    Commissioned 

Aug.  1,  1595.    Died  Nov.  1,  1595. 

1596.  Pedro  de  Portocarrero,  Bishop  of  Cuenca.    Commissioned  Jan. 

1,  1596.    Resigned  in  1599.    Died  Sept.  20,  1600. 
1599.  Fernando  Nino  de  Guevara,  Cardinal  and  Archbishop  of  Seville. 
Commissioned  Aug.    11,   1599.     Took  possession    Dec.  23, 
1599. 
Resigned  in  1602.     Died  Jan.  1,  1609. 

1602.  Juan  de  Zufiiga,  Bishop  of  Cartagena.    Commissioned  July  29, 

1602.     Died  Dec.  20,  1602. 

1603.  Juan  Bautista  Acevedo,  Royal  Confessor  and  Patriarch  of  the 

Indies.    Commissioned  Jan.  20,  1603.    Died  July  8,  1608. 
1608.  Bernardo  de  Sandoval  y  Roxas,  Cardinal  and  Archbishop  of 

Toledo.      Commissioned    Sept.    12,    1608.      Died    Dec.    7, 

1618. 
1619.  Luis  de  Aliaga,  Royal  Confessor.    Commissioned  Jan.  4,  1619. 

Resigned  in  1621.     Died  Dec.  3,  1626. 
1622,  Andres  Pacheco,  Bishop  of  Cuenca.     Commissioned  Feb.  12, 

1622.     Died  April  7,  1626. 


558  APPENDIX 

1627.  Antonio  de  Zapata,  Cardinal  and  Archbishop  of  Burgos,  1600- 

1605.      Commissioned  Jan.  30,   1627.  .  Resigned  in   1632. 

Died  April  23,  1635. 
1632.  Antonio  de  Sotomayor,  Royal  Confessor  and  Archbishop  of 

Damascus.    Commissioned  July  17,  1632.    Resigned  June  21, 

1643.     Died  in  1648. 
1643.  Diego  de  Arce  y  Reynoso,  Bishop  of  Plasencia.    Commissioned 

Sept.  18,  1643.     Took  possession  Nov.  14,  1643.     Died  June 

20,  1665. 

1665.  Pascual  de  Aragon,  Archbishop  of  Toledo.    A  document  of  Oct. 

26,  1665,  is  drafted  in  his  name.    Resigned  soon  afterwards. 

1666.  Juan  Everardo  Nithardo,  Royal  Confessor  and  Cardinal.    Com- 

missioned Oct.  15,  1666.    Banished  Feb.  25,  1669,  as  ambas- 
sador to  Rome.     Died  in  1681. 

1669.  Diego  Sarmiento  de  Valladares,  Bishop  of  Plasencia.  Commis- 
sioned Sept.  15,  1669.     Died  Jan.  29,  1695. 

1695.  Juan  Thomas  de  Rocaberti,  Archbishop  of  Valencia.  Commis- 
sioned Aug.  2,  1695.     Died  June  13,  1699. 

1699.  Alfonso  Fernandez  de  Cordova  y  Aguilar.  Died  Sept.  19,  1699, 
before  the  arrival  of  his  brief. 

1699.  Balthasar  de  Mendoza  y  Sandoval,  Bishop  of  Segovia.  Com- 
missioned Oct.  31,  1699.  Resigned  in  1705.  Died  Nov.  4, 
1727. 

1705.  Vidal  Marin,  Bishop  of  Ceuta.  Commissioned  March  24,  1705. 
Died  March  10,   1709. 

1709.  Antonio  Ybanez  de  la  Riva-Herrera,  Archbishop  of  Saragossa. 
Commissioned  April  5,  1709.     Died  Sept.  3,  1710. 

1711.  Francesco  Giudice,  Cardinal.  Commissioned  June  11,  1711. 
Resigned  in  1716.     Died  Oct.  10,  1725. 

1715.  FeUpe  Antonio  Gil  de  Taboada.  Commissioned  Feb.  28,  1715. 
Did  not  serve. 

1717.  Josef  de  Molines.     Proclaimed  Jan.  9,  1717,  while  in  Rome. 
Detained  in  Milan  by  the  Austrians  and  died  there. 
Juan  de  Arzamendi.     Died  without  serving. 

1720.  Diego  de  Astorga  y  Cespedes,  Bishop  of  Barcelona.  Commis- 
sioned March  26,  1720.    Resigned  in  1720.    Died  Feb.  9, 1724. 

1720.  Juan  de  Camargo,  Bishop  of  Pampeluna.  Commissioned  July 
18,  1720.    Died  May  24,  1733. 

1733.  Andres  de  Orbe  y  Larreategui,  Archbishop  of  Valencia.  Com- 
missioned July  28,  1733.    Died  Aug.  4,  1740. 

1742.  Manuel  Isidro  Manrique  de  Laia,  Archbishop  of  Santiago. 
Commissioned  Jan.  1,  1742.     Died  Jan.  10,  1746. 

1746.  Francisco  Perez  de  Prado  y  Cuesta,  Bishop  of  Teruel.  Appointed 
July  26,  1746.  Commissioned  Aug.  22,  1746.  Died  in  July, 
1755. 


LIST  OF  INQUISITORS-GENERAL  559 

1755.  Manuel  Quintano  Bonifaz,  Archbishop  of  Pharsalia.  Commis- 
sioned Aug.  11,  1755.    Resigned  in  1774.    Died  Dec.  18,  1775. 

1775.  Fehpe  Beltran,  Bishop  of  Salamanca.  Appointed  Dec.  27,  1774. 
Commissioned  Feb.  27,  1775.  Took  possession  May  5,  1775. 
Died  Nov.  30,  1783. 

1784.  Agustin  Rubin  de  Cevallos,  Bishop  of  Jaen.  Appointed  Jan. 
23,  1784.  Commissioned  Feb.  17,  1784.  Took  possession 
June  7,  1784.    Died  Feb.  8,  1793. 

1793.  Manuel  Abad  y  la  Sierra,  Archbishop  of  Selimbria.      Took 

possession  May  11,  1793.    Resigned  in  1794.    Died  Jan.  12, 
1806. 

1794.  Francisco  Antonio  de  Lorenzana,  Archbishop  of  Toledo.    Took 

possession  Sept.  12,  1794.    Resigned  in  1797.    Died  April  17, 

1804. 
1798.  Ramon  Josef  de  Arce  y  Reynoso,  Archbishop  of  Saragossa. 

Resigned  March  22,  1808.    Died  in  Paris,  Feb.  16,  1814. 
1814.  Xavier  Mier  y  Campillo,  Bishop  of  Almeria.    Took  possession 

in  August,  1814.    In  a  series  of  documents  he  ceases  to  appear 

about  June,  1818,  and  for  some  months  the  Suprema  acts  as 

in  a  vacancy. 
1818.  Geronimo  Castellon  y  Salas,  Bishop  of  T^razona.    The  earliest 

document  in  which  I  have  met  his  signature  is  dated  Oct.  21, 

1818.    He  had  no  successor  and  died  April  20.  1835. 


Signature  of  the  Last  Inquisitor-general. 


III. 

SPANISH  COINAGE. 


The  question  of  values  has  significance  in  so  many  of  the  operations 
of  the  Inquisition  that  an  outline  of  the  successive  mintages  of  Spain 
becomes  almost  a  necessity.  The  subject  is  complicated,  after  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  by  the  progressive  but  fluctuating 
depreciation  in  the  moneda  de  vellon,  or  base  coinage,  which  became 
practically  the  standard  of  value  in  all  transactions. 

The  monetary  unit  of  Castile  was  the  maravedi,  anciently  a  gold 
coin  of  value  but,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  diminished  to  a  fraction  of 
its  former  estimation.  A  declaration  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  in 
1503  says  that  formerly  the  silver  real  w^as  equal  to  3  maravedis, 
but  now  it  is  worth  34.^ 

The  unit  of  weight  was  the  marc,  or  half-pound,  of  8  ounces  or 
4608  grains.  The  intermediate  weights  were  the  ochavo  of  72  grains, 
the  adarme  of  36  and  the  tomin  of  12.  These  were  applicable  to  all  the 
precious  metals  but,  up  to  1731,  the  marc  of  gold  was  reckoned  to 
contain  50  castellanos  of  8  tomines,  making  4800  grains,  whereby  the 
grain  was  reduced  2^. 

The  standard  of  fineness  was  fixed,  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  for 
gold  at  23f  carats,  but  was  reduced  by  Charles  V  to  22  carats,  at 
which  it  remained.  For  silver  the  standard  maintained  since  the 
fourteenth  century  was  known  as  once  diner os  cuatro  granos  (pure 
silver  being  doce  dineros)  equivalent  to  .925  fine.  In  1709  Philip  V 
reduced  it  to  once  dineros  or  .91667,  and  in  some  mintages  even 
lower. 

Gold  Coins.  When  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  revised  the  coinage, 
in  1497,  they  ordered  the  marc  to  be  worked  into  60^  excelentes  de  la 
granada.  This  coin  was  worth  374  maravedis  and  thus  was  practi- 
cally the  same  as  the  ducat  or  escudo  which  was  rated  at  374.  There 
were  also  the  dobla  alfonsi  or  castellano  or  peso  de  oro,  equal  to  485, 
the  dohla  de  la  banda  to  365,  the  florin  to  265.  Thus  the  ducat,  which 
was  the  coin  most  frequently  quoted,  was  equivalent  to  11  silver 
reales.  The  ratio  between  gold  and  silver  fluctuated  between  7  and 
8  to  1.  

»  Coleccion  de  Cedulas,  IV,  388,  400  (Madrid,  1829). 
(560) 


SPANISH  COINAGE  561 

In  1537  Charles  V  ordered  coronas  and  escudos,  22  carats  fine  to  be 
worked  68  to  the  marc  and  to  be  worth  330  maravedis,  which  he  says 
was  the  weight  and  fineness  of  the  best  crowns  of  Italy  and  France. 
With  the  progressive  depreciation  in  the  value  of  silver,  the  coinage 
law  of  Philip  II  in  1566  raised  the  escudo  from  330  mrs.  to  400.  The 
old  ducats  were  to  be  current  at  429  mrs.,  the  castellanos  at  544. 
The  tendency  of  silver  continued  downward  and  in  1609  Philip  III 
permitted  the  escudo  to  pass  for  440  mrs.,  threatening  three  years' 
exile  and  a  fine  of  500  ducats  for  asking  or  receiving  more.  In  1612 
he  allowed  the  castellano  in  bullion  to  be  sold  for  576  mrs.  under 
the  same  penalties  for  exceeding  it.  The  escudo  or  crown  remained 
the  standard  gold  coin.  In  1642  it  was  raised  to  550  mrs.;  in  1643 
to  612  and  then  reduced  to  510  owing  to  variations  in  the  silver 
and  vellon  coinage.  In  1651  it  is  rated  at  16  silver  reales,  in  1652 
at  14,  in  1686  at  15,  but  with  a  new  coinage  of  lighter  weight 
silver  it  was  raised  to  19,  and  the  doblon,  or  piece  of  2  escudos,  to 
40  reales.  For  larger  transactions  multiples  of  the  escudo  were  struck, 
known  as  doblones  de  a  dos,  de  a  cuatro  and  de  a  ocho,  containing 
respectively  2,  4  and  8  escudos.  The  latter,  which  became  popularly 
known  as  the  Spanish  doubloon,  were  rated  in  1726  at  18  pesos  or 
pieces  of  eight  silver  reales,  in  1728  at  16,  in  1737  at  15  and  in  1779 
at  16  again,  the  doubloon  and  the  peso  being  virtually  of  the  same 
weight,  each  a  fraction  under  an  ounce.  In  1738,  to  supply  the  lack 
of  silver  money  there  were  coined  half-crowns  of  gold,  worth  in  vellon 
18  reales  28  mrs.  This  fraction  was  troublesome  and,  in  1742,  the 
weight  was  changed  to  correspond  with  20  reales,  and  the  coins  became 
known  as  veintenos  or  escuditos. 

Silver  Coins.  The  silver  unit  was  the  real,  which,  under  the  coinage 
laws  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  was  worked  67  to  the  silver  marc, 
of  11  dineros  4  grains  fine  (.925),  worth  34  maravedis.  It  long 
continued  of  this  standard  but,  in  the  financial  mismanagement  under 
Philip  IV,  the  weight  was  reduced  by  ordering  the  marc  worked  into 
83  reales  and  1  quartillo  (83^  reales),  the  old  coinage  in  circulation 
being  advanced  25  per  cent,  in  value  by  making  the  peso  equivalent 
to  10  reales  instead  of  8,  but  as  this  failed  to  afford  the  expected  relief 
it  was  suspended  in  1643,  to  be  again  tried  in  1684  when  the  real  was 
reduced  to  84  to  the  marc,  and  the  old  coinage  was  rated  at  10  to  8  of 
the  new.  In  1709  we  first  hear  of  the  peseta,  as  a  name  appHed  to  the 
French  coin  introduced  by  the  War  of  Succession,  rated  at  2  reales, 
and  subsequently  used  to  denote  the  double  real  of  Spanish  mintage. 
At  the  same  time  the  standard  was  reduced  to  11  dineros  or  .91667 
fine.  During  the  subsequent  years  of  the  reign  of  Philip  V  the  varia- 
tions in  the  silver  coinage  were  numerous  and  perplexing.  The  peso, 
escudo   de  plata,  or  piece  of  8  reales,  was  the   leading  coin,  and 

36 


562  APPENDIX 

in  1726  it  was  ordered  that  it,  whether  minted  in  the  Indies  or  in 
Spain,  should  be  current  for  9^  reales,  and,  as  this  did  not  bring  it  to 
an  equivalent  with  gold,  in  1728  it  was  declared  equal  to  10  reales. 
This  however  was  now  confined  to  the  mintage  of  the  Indies,  which 
came  to  be  known  as  plata  nacional;  the  small  coinage  of  the  Spanish 
mints  was  termed  'provincial  and  was  allowed  to  remain  current  at  a 
discount  of  20  per  cent.  It  was  77  reales  to  the  marc  and  the  fineness 
was  only  10  dineros,  reduced  in  1728  to  9  dineros,  22  grains  or  .798 
fine,  rendering  it  in  reality  only  about  three-quarters  the  value  of  the 
standard.  There  were  thus  two  entirely  distinct  silver  currencies 
coexistent,  and  to  these  was  added  a  third,  popularly  known  as  Marias 
— "plata  nueva  que  vulgarmente  se  llaman  Marias" — which  was  called 
in  by  decree  of  April  27,  1728,  but  which  was  still  in  circulation  in 
1736.  Under  these  circumstances  considerable  circumlocution  was 
necessary  when  quoting  sums  in  silver  to  define  the  exact  kind  of  coin 
meant  as,  for  instance,  in  the  coinage  law  of  July  16,  1730,  we  are  told 
that  the  allowance  for  expenses  to  the  official  known  as  the  Fiel,  was 
"un  real  de  plata  provincial,  valor  de  16  quartos  de  vellon."  In  fact, 
as  we  shall  see,  the  debased  coinage  known  as  vellon  had  become  the 
real  standard  of  financial  transactions. 

In  the  later  periods  it  will  simplify  the  appreciation  of  amounts 
recorded  to  remind  the  reader  that  the  'peso,  or  piece  of  8  reales, 
is  the  modern  dollar,  and  the  real,  or  one-eighth  of  this,  is  the  coin 
familiarly  known  of  old  in  various  parts  of  the  United  States  as  the 
"bit,"  the  "elevenpenny  bit"  shortened  to  "levy,"  the  ninepence  or 
the  shilling.    The  maravedi  was  -^j  of  this,  or  about  f  of  one  cent. 

In  the  colonies  there  is  frequent  allusion  to  the  peso  ensayado  as 
distinguished  from  the  peso  de  a  ocho,  which  I  gather  to  be  a  piece 
worth  400  maravedis,  or  nearly  llf  reales — a  little  more  than  a  ducat. 

Vellon  Coinage.  The  debased  coinage  known  as  vellon  was  an 
alloy  of  silver  and  copper,  which  proved  the  source  of  unutterable 
confusion  in  Spanish  finance.  As  we  find  it  prescribed  by  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella  in  1497,  it  is  merely  a  token  coin  convenient  for  small 
transactions,  consisting  of  7  grains  of  silver  to  the  marc  of  copper, 
worked  into  192  blancas,  the  blanca  being  one-half  of  the  maravedi. 
Complaints  were  made  that  it  was  exported  at  a  profit,  so  that  it 
became  scarce,  and  in  1552  Charles  V,  to  remedy  this,  reduced  the  silver 
to  5  grains.  The  extravagant  expenditures  of  Philip  II  rendered 
him  eager  to  clutch  at  any  expedient  to  relieve  immediate  necessities 
and,  in  1566,  he  adopted  the  unfortunate  device  of  issuing  a  moneda 
de  vellon  rica,  with  2^  dineros,  2  grains  (98  grains)  of  silver  to  the 
marc  of  copper,  to  be  worked  into  quartillos,  80  to  the  marc  (worth  \ 
real  or  8^  maravedis),  into  quartos,  170  to  the  marc  (worth  4  mara- 
vedis) and  medios  quartos,  340  to  the  marc  (worth  2  maravedis).    The 


SPANISH  COINAGE  663 

blancas  or  half  maravedis,  were  retained,  but  the  silver  in  them  was 
reduced  to  4  grains  to  the  marc,  worked  into  220  pieces.  Although 
there  do  not  appear  ever  to  have  been  larger  coins  of  vellon  issued 
than  those  authorized  by  Philip  II  the  flood  of  this  inferior  money  sup- 
planted the  precious  metals.  It  became  the  basis  of  all  internal  trans- 
actions and  the  precious  metals  were  reduced  virtually  to  the  position 
of  commodities.  There  was  a  restamping  of  this  coinage  in  1602,  in 
which  the  silver  was  omitted,  put  into  forced  circulation  at  a  value  of 
7  to  2,  With  all  the  power  of  Spain,  backed  by  the  treasures  of  the 
New  World  and  wielded  by  an  autocratic  monarchy,  it  was  impossible 
to  maintain  so  vicious  and  artificial  a  currency  at  par,  and  there  fol- 
lowed, during  the  seventeenth  century,  a  series  of  the  most  desperate 
attempts  to  remedy  the  evils  which  were  crippling  the  commerce  and 
industry  of  the  nation.*  In  1619  there  was  a  solemn  promise  made 
that  no  more  of  the  pernicious  stuff  should  be  issued  for  twenty  years — 
a  promise  only  made  to  be  broken  and  renewed  in  1632.  In  1625, 
under  the  severest  penalties,  the  premium  on  gold  and  silver  was 
limited  to  10  per  cent.,  and  in  1628  the  nominal  value  was  reduced 
one-half,  but  in  1636  the  permissible  premium  on  silver  was  recognized 
as  25  per  cent.,  immediately  after  which  the  vellon  coinage  was 
restamped  and  trebled  in  value.  In  1640  the  premium  was  allowed 
to  be  28  per  cent,  and  in  1641  there  was  another  restamping  and  the 
value  was  doubled,  followed  by  recognizing  the  premium  as  50  per 
cent.  In  some  accounts  before  me  of  the  salaries  and  expenses  of  the 
Supreme  Council  of  the  Inquisition,  not  dated,  but  evidently  belonging 
to  this  period,  the  figures  set  down  are  increased  when  added,  in  one 
case  by  28  per  cent,  and  in  another  by  50,  to  adjust  them  to  the  cur- 
rency in  which  they  were  expected  to  be  paid.  In  other  statements 
some  items  are  specified  as  payable  in  vellon  and  others  in  plata.  In 
the  effort  to  bring  the  vellon  to  par  in  1642,  it  was  suddenly  reduced 
to  one-sixth  of  its  current  value  and  then,  in  1643,  it  was  raised  four- 
fold. This  resulted,  in  1647,  in  a  premium  of  25  per  cent.,  but  when, 
in  1651,  it  was  again  restamped  and  restored  to  the  value  which  it  bore 


'  As  an  incident  to  this  fictitious  valuation  of  the  vellon  coinage,  counterfeiting 
flourished  to  an  enormous  extent,  unrepressed  by  the  severest  penalties.  The 
importation  of  coins  manufactured  abroad  added  to  the  confusion,  for  it  was  too 
lucrative  to  be  prevented  by  even  the  most  rigorous  measures.  In  1614  a  chron- 
icler states  that  since  the  recent  doubling  of  the  nominal  value  of  the  cuartos  five 
or  six  millions  in  vellon  money  had  been  brought  from  England  and  Holland, 
stowed  in  vessels  under  wheat.  It  was  exchanged  for  silver  at  30  per  cent,  dis- 
count and  the  silver  exported.  The  remedy  devised  was  to  bring  inland  twenty 
leagues  from  the  coast  the  foreign  traders  engaged  in  the  business,  but  this  remedy 
was  found  to  be  worse  than  the  disease  and  was  abandoned  (Cabrera,  Relaciones, 
pp.  551,  553).  We  shall  see  hereafter  that  the  Inquisition  was  invoked  to  put 
an  end  to  this  traffic. 


564  APPENDIX 

prior  to  1642,  the  premium  rose  to  50  per  cent.  In  June,  1652,  another 
attempt  was  made  to  reduce  it  to  one-fourth,  but  this  seems  to  have 
been  a  failure  and  in  November  the  edict  was  suspended.  In  1660  its 
further  issue  was  suspended  and  the  experiment  was  again  tried  of 
an  alloy  containing  20  grains  of  silver  to  the  marc,  or  about  2-g-g-, 
which  became  known  as  moneda  de  molino  de  vellon  ligado.  This  was 
so  unsuccessful  that,  in  1664,  its  nominal  value  was  reduced  one-half 
and  all  other  vellon  currency  was  prohibited,  while  in  February,  1680, 
a  still  further  reduction  of  75  per  cent,  in  its  value  was  ordered 
and  in  May  its  use  was  forbidden,  it  was  declared  to  have  no  value 
as  currency,  and  the  premium  of  50  per  cent,  was  permitted  as  against 
other  vellon  coins,  which  had  still  continued  in  circulation.  This 
lasted  for  four  years,  when  in  1684  the  moneda  de  molino  was  restored 
to  circulation  with  a  nominal  value  double  that  of  the  last  reduction.* 
With  the  eighteenth  century  the  pretence  of  alloying  copper  with  a 
fraction  of  silver  was  abandoned.  In  1718  a  pure  copper  coinage  was 
issued  and  by  this  time  the  premium  on  specie  recognized  by  law  had 
advanced  to  nearly  100  per  cent.  In  spite  of  the  prohibitions  to  ask 
or  receive  more  than  this,  people  were  forced  to  pay  more.  Traders  kept 
the  copper  coinage  tied  up  in  bags  representing  the  larger  coins  and 
refused  to  furnish  the  latter  except  at  an  advance.^  The  premium 
gradually  rose  until,  in  1737,  the  real  de  plata  provincial  was  recog- 
nized legally  as  worth  2  reales  de  vellon  and  the  real  de  plata  nacional 
as  worth  2h.  Although  there  were  no  coined  reales  de  vellon, 
they  were  the  standard  money  of  account  on  which  all  transactions 
were  based.  In  the  laws  regulating  the  mints  the  salaries  of  the  officials 
are  always  stated  in  vellon.  Thus,  in  1718,  the  superintendent  of  the 
mint  of  Madrid  has  24,000  reales  de  vellon,  the  treasurer  16,000,  and 
so  forth.    In  1728  the  superintendent  is  allowed  500  escudos  de  vellon, 


^  Under  these  perpetual  changes  it  will  be  readily  understood  how  difficult  it 
is  to  estimate  values  at  any  special  period.  In  a  document  of  1670  I  find  the 
dohlon  converted  into  reales  de  velldn  at  the  rate  of  1  to  81,  although  in  this 
case  the  dohlon  was  of  4  pesos  or  32  reales  de  plata.  Similar  to  this  is  the  con- 
version in  another  item  of  162  reales  de  plata  into  405  reales  de  velldn,  showing 
that  vellon  was  at  a  discount  of  60  per  cent,  or  specie  at  a  premium  of  150. — 
Arch,  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Leg.  1476,  fol.  2,  61. 

The  unutterable  confusion  produced  by  these  sudden  and  arbitrary  changes 
in  the  legal  value  of  the  coinage  is  illustrated  by  a  contention,  in  1683,  between 
the  auditor-general  and  the  receiver-general  of  the  Suprema,  respecting  the 
accountability  of  the  latter  for  funds  on  hand  and  receipts  and  payments  at  the 
time  when  the  pragmdtica  of  February  10,  1680,  went  into  effect,  involving  points 
of  which  the  equities  were  not  easy  to  determine. — Ibid.,  Leg.  1480,  fol.  129. 

'  It  was  probably  from  this  that  the  custom  arose  in  giving  receipts  for  money 
to  reserve  or  to  renounce,  as  the  case  might  be,  "  las  leyes  y  excepciones  de  la  non 
numerata  pecunia." 


SPANISH  COINAGE  555 

the  contador  400,  etc.  In  1730  it  is  provided  that  the  sum  of  120,000 
reales  de  vellon  is  to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  treasurer  for  current 
expenses  and  he  is  to  give  security  in  20,000  ducados  de  vellon  on 
unencumbered  real  estate.  From  this  it  follows  that,  when  the  kind 
of  coin  is  not  specified,  there  may  be  some  difficulty  in  estimating  the 
value  of  a  sum  of  money  mentioned.  The  difference  between  silver 
and  vellon  went  on  increasing.  In  1772,  when  a  new  coinage  of  gold 
and  silver  was  issued,  the  gold  escudo,  worth  16  reales  de  plata,  was 
declared  to  be  worth  37^  reales  de  vellon. 

With  the  Revolution  the  old  coinage  passed  away  and  was  replaced 
by  the  decimal  system,  the  peseta  and  centimo  being  equivalent  to  the 
French  franc  and  centime.  Yet  still  prices  continue  to  be  quoted  in 
reales,  which  are  now  rated  at  25  centimos,  or  about  5  cents  of 
American  money. 

Nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to  ascertain  accurately  the  variation 
in  the  purchasing  power  of  money,  but  perhaps  the  price  of  labor 
affords  the  most  trustworthy  standard.  In  the  fifteenth  century  this 
would  seem  to  have  been  about  6  maravedis  a  day.  In  the  eighteenth, 
common  laborers  employed  in  the  mints  received  3^  reales  de  vellon 
per  diem,  while  those  in  more  confidential  positions  such  as  watchmen 
were  paid  6.^ 

As  a  matter  of  course  the  kingdoms  of  the  Crown  of  Aragon  had 
their  independent  systems  of  coinage,  which  were  based  on  the  old 
divisions  of  the  marc,  almost  everywhere  prevalent,  of  libras,  sueldos 
and  dineros,  or  pounds,  shillings  and  pence,  there  being  20  sueldos 
to  the  libra  and  12  dineros  to  the  sueldo.  In  the  documents  of  the 
early  period  there  are  frequent  fluctuations  in  the  relations  betw^een 
these  coins  and  the  Castilian  system,  but  as  a  rule  there  were  reckoned 
20  Aragonese  sueldos  to  the  ducat,  which  therefore  was  equivalent  to 
the  hbra.  In  Catalonia  the  sueldo  barcelonense  was  24  to  the  ducat,  and 
there  was  also  a  coin  known  as  morahatin,  equal  to  9  sueldos.  Unifica- 
tion of  currency  throughout  the  monarchy  was  a  desirable  object,  long 
frustrated  by  the  stubborn  particularism  of  the  provinces.  It  was 
especially  difficult  to  bring  about  in  Catalonia,  where  the  vellon  coinage 
had  been  largely  diluted  by  the  allies  during  their  long  occupation  of 
the  principality  in  the  War  of  Succession.  An  edict  of  1733  informs  us 
that  there  were  24  dineros  to  the  Catalan  real,  but  most  of  those  in  cir- 

'  Full  information  as  to  the  coinage  of  the  fifteenth  century  will  be  found  in 
Saez,  Demostracion  del  Valor  de  las  Monedas  que  corrian  durante  el  Reinado 
de  Don  Enrique  IV  (Madrid,  1805). 

For  the  subsequent  period  reference  is  made  to  the  very  voluminous  series  of 
laws  and  decrees  preserved  in  the  Nueva  Recopilacion,  Lib.  V,  Tit.  xxi;  the 
Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  V,  Tit.  xxi  and  xxii,  and  the  Novisima  Recopilacion, 
Lib.  IX,  Tit.  xvii. 


566  APPENDIX 

culation  of  the  coinage  of  1653  had  been  restamped  by  the  aUies  to 
double  their  nominal  value.  They  had  also  coined  dinerillos  Catalanes, 
with  the  same  alloy  of  silver  as  the  mintage  of  1653,  but  with  only  half 
the  weight,  yet  circulated  at  the  full  value.  The  edict  denounces  the 
dinerillos  of  both  Aragon  and  Catalonia  as  an  intolerable  abuse  and  with 
superfluous  emphasis  orders  their  use  to  be  abandoned,  immediately  in 
Aragon  and  in  Catalonia  as  soon  as  sufficient  money  of  vellon  can  be 
coined  to  take  their  place.  The  effort  was  futile  for  another  edict  of 
1737  assimilates  the  dinerillo  of  Aragon  and  Valencia  to  the  Castilian 
ochavo,  or  piece  of  2  maravedis,  and  the  dinerillo  of  Catalonia  to  1 
maravedi.  In  1743,  in  consequence  of  disputes  arising  between  troops 
quartered  in  Catalonia  and  the  peasants,  it  was  ordered  that  the  vellon 
money  of  Castile  should  circulate  freely  in  Aragon,  Catalonia  and 
Majorca.  As  late  as  1772  an  edict  calls  in  the  local  small  coinage  of 
Valencia  and  orders  it  replaced  with  Castilian  money,  but  this  was  so 
unsuccessful  that  it  was  followed, in  1777,  with  one  confiningthe  use  of 
these  coins  to  Valencia  and  forbidding  their  circulation  elsewhere. 
When  the  unification  of  the  currency  occurred  does  not  clearly  appear, 
but  it  probably  was  not  until  the  revision  of  the  monetary  system  in 
the  present  century. 

The  old  cruzado  of  Portugal,  to  which  reference  sometimes  occurs, 
was  virtually  the  same  as  the  Spanish  ducat. 


DOCUMENTS. 

I. 

Letter  of  King   Ferdinand  to   the   Inquisitor-general  Tor- 

QUEMADA,  July  22,  1486. 

(See  pp.  132,  254,  291). 

(Archivo  General  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Registro  3684,  fol.  102). 

El  Rey. 

Devoto  padre  Prior.  Vuestra  carta  vi  e  las  otras  de  los  otros  inquisi- 
dores  de  ^aragoga  y  el  memorial  que  vos  embiaron.  A  la  carta  vuestra 
con  otra  de  mi  mano  vos  respondo  e  a  las  de  los  inquisidores  e  mandado 
responder  e  sera  la  carta  con  la  presente.  E  quanto  a  lo  del  memorial 
6  instruccion  que  escriben  sobre  lo  que  Don  Juan  de  Ribera  no  faze 
la  guerra  fasta  haber  carta  de  mano  mia  e  de  la  serenisima  reina  mi 
muy  cara  e  muy  amada  mujer  luego  le  ascribieramos  salvo  porque 
toda  la  gente  suya  havemos  mandado  venir  para  donde  himos  y  sin 
gente  ninguna  cosa  podria  hazer.  Plazera  a  nuestro  senyor  que  con 
nuestra  ida  se  remediara  presto  e  volverse  ha  la  gente  a  la  frontera 
de  Navarra  e  luego  mandaremos  a  Don  Juan  que  apriete  a  los  de 
Tudela  en  guisa  que  fagan  la  razon.  Quanto  a  lo  que  scriven  en  el 
tercero  capitulo  de  la  limosna  que  les  parece  se  debe  facer  de  sus  bienes 
a  los  pobres  penitenciados  imponiendolos  alguna  pecuniaria  sentencia, 
porque  los  conversos  de  aquella  ciudad  son  muy  conocidos  y  podria 
ser  que  alia  les  dieren  a  entender  una  cosa  por  otra  me  parece  que 
les  debeis  escribir  que  envien  relacion  de  quien  son,  specific ando  los 
nombres  de  cada  uno  e  que  bienes  tienen  e  quantas  sentencias  e  que 
penitencia  les  parece  que  se  debe  dar  a  todos  e  a  cada  uno  dellos, 
porque,  sabida  la  relacion  de  todo  ello  se  podra  mejor  determinar  lo 
que  en  ello  se  debe  facer.  Quanto  a  la  particion  de  los -bienes  dentre 
marido  e  muger  quando  el  uno  es  sentenciado  y  el  otro  se  falla  inmune 
porque  es  cosa  que  esta  en  drecho  y  en  fuero  del  reino  me  parece  que 
lo  debeis  mandar  veer  a  micer  Ponce  y  otros  letrados  y  que  sea  men- 
ester  y  mas  convenga.  Quanto  al  cinqueno  capitulo  que  fabla  de  las 
carceles  perpetuas  es  muy  gran  razon  que  se  faga  e  yo  enbio  a  mandar 
al  receptor  que  las  faga.  Quanto  al  sexto  capitulo  en  que  dicen  que 
se  embie  a  mandar  que  se  ha  de  dar  a  los  encarcerados  para  su  man- 
tenemiento  me  parece  escriban  aca  su  parecer  y  entonce  sobrello 
podremos  determinar  lo  que  paresca  mas  razonable.    Quanto  al  seteno 

(567) 


568  APPENDIX 

que  dicen  que  han  tornado  un  hombre  para  tormentar  porque  dicen 
que  los  nuncios  no  lo  quieren  facer  ni  fallan  quien  lo  faga,  me  parece 
que  por  scusar  tantos  salaries  devrian  echar  uno  de  los  nuncios  e  que 
la  persona  que  han  tornado  para  tormentar  sirviere  de  nuncio  e  se  le 
diese  el  mismo  salario  e  puesto  que  esto  no  se  puede  facer  se  debe 
limitar  el  salario,  porque  seiscientos  sueldos  es  muy  sobrado  salario. 
Quanto  al  ocheno  capitulo  en  que  fabla  del  salario  de  Don.  Ramon 
de  Mur  es  justa  cosa  que  pues  que  bien  sirve  sea  muy  bien  pagado,  e 
se  le  den  dos  mil  sueldos  de  salario.  Quanto  al  noveno  capitulo  que 
fabla  de  los  porteros  estoy  maravillado  que  pagando  tan  gran  salario 
como  se  pago  al  aguacil  allende  aquello  se  hayan  de  pagar  porteros 
que  aca  como  sabeis  todo  esta  a  cargo  del  aguacil.  Debeis  les  mucho 
encargar  a  los  inquisidores  que  lo  miren  porque  se  asi  no  lo  fazen  mas 
montaran  los  salaries  que  proceda  de  la  inquisicion.  Quanto  al  deceno 
capitulo  que  dice  que  han  de  facer  e  fazen  un  lugarteniente  de  aguacil 
para  enviar  de  fuera,  parece  que  se  les  debe  escribir  que  en  las  cosas 
que  buenamente  escusar  se  pudieren  lo  deben  escusar,  faciendo  ir  a 
ello  al  alguacil  principal,  pero  no  pudiendo  ir  el  fagase  un  lugarteniente 
como  lo  acostumbran  de  facer,  pero  sea  el  salario  lo  menos  que  ser 
pueda  porque  bien  mirado  son  muy  excesivos  los  salaries  que  se  pagan 
a  la  inquisicion.  En  lo  que  dicen  que  tengo  fecha  merced  de  los  bienes 
de  Pedro  de  Urrea  saben  poco  en  la  verdad  porque  es  cierto  que  de 
aquellos  ni  de  otros  tengo  fecha  merced  a  nadie.  Quanto  al  onceno 
capitulo  en  que  demandan  carta  de  marca  e  represalia  para  Tudela 
por  el  negocio  de  Martin  de  Santangel  ha  de  preceder  carta  requisitoria 
la  qual  debeis  mandar  ordenar  alia  a  micer  Ponte  y  enviandola  aca 
luego  se  despachara.  En  el  dozeno  esta  ya  respondido  y  quanto  a  lo 
que  escriben  en  el  treceno  que  no  han  egecutado  los  matadores  de 
maestre  Epila  pluguierame  mucho  que  vos  escribieran  las  causas 
porque.  Quanto  al  catorceno  capitulo  en  que  escriben  que  seria 
bueno  que  fuere  maestro  Crespo  a  entender  en  la  inquisicion  con  el 
abad  de  Barbastro,  buen  hombre  es  sin  duda  e  pareceme  bien  que  vaya 
e  asimismo  me  parece  bien  micer  Tristan  de  la  Porta  para  que  vaya 
a  fazer  assesor  como  lo  escriben  en  el  quatorceno  capitulo  que  buen 
letrado  es  e  hombre  de  buena  fama.  En  el  dezeseyseno  e  ultimo 
demandan  un  escribano  para  los  bienes  que  se  han  de  litigar  por 
justicia  y  lo  han  de  determinar  ellos  como  jueces.  Verdaderamente 
demandan  tantos  oficiales  y  acrecentamiento  de  tantos  salaries  que 
es  menester  que  se  mire  mucho  en  ello,  mayormente  que  es  cierto 
segun  Camanyas  me  ha  dicho  que  les  escribanos  de  la  inquisicion 
sienten  a  injuria  que  otro  entiende  en  el  dicho  negocio  sine  ellos,  mayor- 
mente que  podrian  pener  en  ello  criade  suye  de  quien  se  cenfien.  Si 
en  todo  le  sobredicho  o  en  alge  dello  vos  parece  otra  cosa  vedlo  alia 
y  escrivitme  vuestro  parecer  porque  sebre  todo  se  mire  e  se  faga  lo 
mejor. 


DOCUMENTS  569 

Camanyas  me  dijo  como  vos  habia  fablado  sobre  los  Jiidios  de 
Teruel  que  les  ban  mandado  ir  dentro  de  termino  de  tres  meses  e  que 
dize  se  fizo  con  voluntad  mia.  Essa  es  la  verdad  que  assi  me  plugo 
e  me  plaze  dello  e  nunca  sera  de  otro  parecer;  verdad  es  que  en  lo 
del  tiempo  tienen  razon  porque  creo  que  en  tampoco  tiempo  no  podrian 
pagar  y  cobrar  deudas  maiormente  teniendo  como  tienen  censales,  ni 
podrian  vender  las  casas  y  heredamientos  que  tienen  e  por  esso  sera 
bien  si  asi  a  vos  paresciere  que  se  les  den  otros  seis  meses  de  tiempo 
sobre  los  tres  que  los  inquisidores  ban  dado  porque  de  aquellos  segun 
dicen  ha  pasado  ya  buena  parte.  Vedlo  vos  e  si  os  paresciere  bien 
asi  fagase.  E  por  agora  no  ocurre  otro  que  escrivir  salvo  que  vos 
ruego  mucho  que  de  la  salut  de  vuestra  persona  continuamente  me 
fagais  sabidor.  Del  Viso  a  xxii  de  julio  de  lxxxvi  anos.  Yo  el  Rey. 
Por  mandado  del  Rey.     Camanyas. 


II. 

Edict  of  May  30,  1492,  Regulating  Settlements  with  the 
Expelled  Jews. 

(Biblioteca  Nacional  de  Espafia,  Seccion  de  MSS.,  Dd,  108,  fol.  126). 

(See  p.  136). 

Don  Fernando  et  Dona  Isabel,  por  la  gracia  de  Dios  Rey  et  Reyna 
de  Castilla,  etc. 

Al  Nuestro  Justicia  Maior  et  a  los  de  nuestro  Consejo  et  oydores  de 
la  nuestra  Audiencia,  Alcalles  et  otras  Justicias  de  la  nuestra  Casa  et 
Corte  et  Chancelleria  e  a  los  Corregidores  e  Assistentes,  Alcalles, 
Merinos,  Alguaciles  et  otras  Justicias  qualesquier  de  las  Cibdades  e 
Villas  e  Logares  de  los  nuestros  Reynos  e  Senorios  et  a  cada  uno  et 
qualquier  de  vos  a  quien  esta  nuestra  Carta  fuere  mostrada  o  su 
traslado  signado  de  escrivano  publico,  Salud  e  gracia.  Bien  savedes 
et  deveis  saber  como  nos  por  algunas  justas  cabsas  que  a  ello  nos 
movieron  complideras  al  servicio  de  Dios  e  nuestro  e  bien  e  pro  comun 
de  nuestros  Reynos  e  nuestros  subditos  e  naturales  dellos,  mandamos 
por  nuestras  cartas  firmadas  de  nuestros  nombres  et  selladas  con 
nuestro  sello,  que  todos  los  Judios  et  moradores  y  estantes  en  los 
dichos  nuestros  Reynos  e  Senorios  salgan  dellos  de  aqui  ha  en  fin  del 
mes  de  Jullio  primero  que  viene  deste  presente  ano  de  la  Data  desta 
nuestra  carta,  so  ciertas  penas  contenidas  en  las  dichas  nuestras  Cartas. 
Agora  por  parte  de  algunas  al  jamas  de  los  dichos  Judios  et  personas 
particulares  dellos  nos  es  fecha  relacion  que  ellos  deven  e  son  obligados 
a  dar  e  pagar  algunas  contias  de  maravedises  et  otras  cosas  ha  algunas 


570  APPENDIX 

personas  Christianas  e  Moros  nuestros  subditos  e  naturales  et  ellos  et 
otras  personas  les  deven  a  ellos  otras  quantias  de  maravedises  et  otras 
cosas  et  que  ellos  no  tienen  con  que  pagar  salbo  con  las  dichas  debdas 
et  algunas  bienes  raices,  et  que  si  aquellos  e  las  dichas  debdas  non  les 
oviesen  de  recebir  en  pago  por  su  justo  precio  et  valor  que  recebirian 
agravio  e  dano,  et  nos  fue  suplicado  que  cerca  de  ello  les  mandasemos 
proveer  de  remedio  como  la  nuestra  merced  fuese.  Et  porque  nuestra 
merced  e  voluntad  es  que  lo  que  asi  mandamos  cerca  de  salir  de  los 
dichos  Judios  se  cumpla  en  el  dicho  termino  et  en  ello  non  se  ponga 
impedimento  alguno,  tovimoslo  por  bien.  Por  que  vos  mandamos  a 
todos  et  a  cada  uno  de  vos  en  nuestros  logares  e  jurisdicciones  que 
luego  que  con  esta  nuestra  carta  o  con  el  dicho  su  traslado  signado 
como  dicho  es,  fueredes  requeridos,  la  qual  mandamos  que  vos  sea 
notificada  dentro  de  veinte  dias  primeros  siguientes  de  la  data  della 
fagais  pregonar  publicamente  por  ante  escrivano  publico  por  las  Plazas 
e  Mercados  e  otros  logares  acostumbrados  que  todos  los  Christianos  e 
Moros  a  quien  deven  los  dichos  Judios  qualesquier  debdas,  o  Judios 
a  quien  devan  Christianos  o  Moros  otras  debdas  parescan  et  se  pre- 
senten  ante  vos  las  dichas  Justicias  donde  biben  los  deudores  a  pedir  e 
liquidar  et  averiguar  las  debdas  et  otras  abciones  que  los  unos  deban 
a  los  otros,  las  quales  liquides  e  averigues  et  llamadas  et  oidas  las 
partes,  procediendo  en  la  liquidacion  simplemente  et  de  piano  sin 
estrepitu  et  figura  de  juicio,  solamente  sabida  la  verdad,  por  manera 
que  todas  las  dichas  debdas  et  abciones  sean  liquidadas  et  averiguadas 
e  sentenciadas  fasta  mediado  el  dicho  mes  de  Jullio  primero  que  viene 
y  las  que  hallardes  que  los  plazos  a  que  se  han  de  pagar  fueren  llegados 
o  llegaren  al  dicho  termino,  las  hagais  luego  dar  e  pagar  a  las  partes 
que  lo  ovieren  de  aver  por  las  personas  que  las  deven,  et  los  Judios 
que  non  tovieren  bienes  muebles  et  semovientes  para  pagar  lo  que  asi 
devieren  castigades  et  apremiedes  et  costringades  a  los  dichos  Chris- 
tianos e  Moros  a  que  tomen  et  resciban  en  pago  de  sus  debdas  otras 
debdas  liquidadas  con  las  partes  que  se  deven  a  los  Judios  por  Chris- 
tianos o  Moros,  o  en  bienes  rayces  apreciados  por  su  justo  precio  e 
valor  por  vos  las  dichas  Justicias  con  dos  buenas  personas  que  en  ello 
entiendan  et  con  tanto  que  los  dichos  Vienes  rayces  que  asi  se  dieren 
en  pago  apreciados  sean  en  lugares  donde  son  vezinos  et  abitantes  las 
personas  a  quien  se  deven  las  dichas  debdas.  Et  en  las  debdas  que  se 
debieren  por  los  dichos  Judios  que  non  llegaren  los  plazos  durante  el 
dicho  termino  de  fasta  mediado  el  dicho  mes  de  Jullio,  den  seguridad 
dellas  a  vista  de  vos  las  dichas  Justicias  para  las  pagar  a  los  plazos 
que  las  devieren  et  sinon  dieren  la  dicha  seguridad  paguen  luego  las 
tales  debdas,  pues  se  han  de  ir  et  despues  non  avrian  contra  quien 
aver  recurso.  Et  en  quanto  a  las  debdas  que  se  deben  a  los  dichos 
Judios  por  Christianos  o  Moros  que  non  fueren  llegados  los  plazos  nin 
llegaren  dentro  del  dicho  termino,  hazed  que  quede  averiguado  e 


DOCUMENTS  57I 

liquidado  segund  dicho  es  para  que  puedan  dexar  los  dichos  Judios 
sus  procuradores  Christianos  o  Moros  o  persona  en  quien  cedieren  o 
traspasasen  las  tales  debdas  o  otros  sus  bienes  et  abciones  para  que  las 
cobren  a  los  plazos  et  segund  et  en  la  manera  que  los  debdores  les 
estavan  et  fueron  obligados  para  la  qual  todo  que  dicho  es  con  todas 
sus  incidencias  et  dependencias  vos  damos  poder  complido,  lo  qual 
todo  haced  et  complid  sin  embargo  de  qualesquier  leyes,  fueros  e 
derechos  e  ordenamientos  que  en  contrario  desto  sean,  con  las  quales 
et  con  cada  una  dellas  dispensamos  et  las  derogamos  en  quanto  a  esto 
atane,  quedando  en  su  fuerza  e  vigor  para  delante.  Et  los  unos  nin 
los  otros  non  fagades  nin  fagan  endeal  por  alguna  manera  so  pena  de 
la  nuestra  merced  et  de  diez  mill  maravedises  para  la  nuestra  camara 
al  que  lo  contrario  fisiese.  Et  demas  mandamos  al  ome  que  les  esta 
nuestra  carta  mostrare  que  los  emplase  que  parescan  ante  nos  en  la 
nuestra  Corte  doquier  que  nos  seamos  del  dia  que  los  emplasasse  fasta 
quince  dias  primeros  siguientes  so  la  dicha  pena  so  la  qual  mandamos 
a  qualquier  escrivano  publico  que  para  esto  fuere  llamado  que  dende 
al  que  se  la  mostrare  testimonio  signado  con  su  signo  porque  nos 
sepamos  en  como  se  cumple  nuestro  mandado.  Dada  en  la  Ciudad  de 
Cordova  a  treinte  dias  del  mes  de  Mayo,afio  del  nascimiento  de  nuestro 
Salvador  Jesu  Christo  de  mill  e  quatrocientos  e  noventa  e  dos  anos. — 
Yo  el  Rey. — Yo  la  Reina. — Yo  Ferrand  Alvarez  de  Toledo,  Secretario 
del  Rey  e  de  la  Reyna  nuestros  senores  la  fize  escrivir  por  su  mandado. 
— En  la  forma  acordada,  Rodericus  Dottor. — Registrada,  Perez  Fran- 
cisco de  Madrid,  Chanciller. 

(Hallase  original  en  el  Archivo  de  la  Ciudad  de  Toledo). 


III. 

Torquemada's  Instructions  to  Inquisitors,  Dec,  1484.^ 

(Archivo  General  de  Simancas,  Consejo  de  la  Inquisicion,  Libro  933), 

(See  p.  182). 

Otras  Capitulaciones  por  el  Reverendo  Seftor  Padre  Prior  de  Santa  Cruz 
hechas  por  sus  Altezas  e  confirmadas. 

Por  mandado  de  los  serenisimos  rey  e  reyna  nuestros  senores  yo 
el  prior  de  santa  cruz,  confesor  de  sus  altezas,  inquisidor  general  por 
la  abtoridad  apostolica  en  los  reynos  de  Castilla  e  de  Aragon,  hordene 
los  articulos  siguientes  cerca  de  algunas  cosas  tocantes  a  la  sancta 

'  These  instructions  are  supplementary  to  those  issued  by  the  assembly  of 
Inquisitors  in  Seville,  Nov.  29,  1484.  Some  of  them  are  printed  by  Arguello, 
but  they  are  not  in  the  Granada  edition  of  1537  of  the  Instructions. 


572  APPENDIX 

inquisicion  e  a  sus  ministros  e  oficiales  los  quales  dichos  capitulos 
mandan  sus  altezas  que  se  guarden  e  cumplan  e  yo  de  parte  de  sus 
altezas  e  por  la  abtoridad  susodicha  asi  lo  mando  e  son  las  que  se 
siguen. 

1.  Primeramente  que  en  cada  partido  donde  fuere  necesario  poner 
inquisicion  e  en  los  que  agora  la  hay  e  se  facen,  aya  dos  inquisidores 
con  un  buen  asesor  los  quales  sean  personas  letrados  de  buena  fama 
e  conciencia  los  mas  idoneos  que  se  puedan  haber  e  que  se  les  de 
alguacil  e  fiscal  e  notarios  y  los  otros  oficiales  que  son  necesarios  para 
la  inquisicion  los  quales  sean  asi  mesmo  personas  aviles  e  diligentes 
en  su  calidad  e  que  a  los  dichos  inquisidores  e  oficiales  les  den  e  sean 
situados  sus  salarios  que  deben  haber,  y  es  la  merced  de  sus  altezas 
e  mandan  que  ninguno  de  los  dichos  oficiales  lleve  de  su  oficio  derechos 
algunos  por  los  abtos  que  hiciere  en  la  dicha  inquisicion  6  en  los 
negocios  e  cosas  della  dependientes  so  pena  de  perder  el  oficio,  e  man- 
dan que  ninguno  de  los  inquisidores  tengan  oficial  ninguno  del  dicho 
oficio  por  su  famihar  porque  al  bien  del  negocio  e  al  servicio  de  sus 
altezas  asi  cumple. 

2.  Item  plaze  a  sus  altezas  que  en  corte  de  Roma  se  ponga  una 
buena  persona  que  sea  letrado  e  de  buen  celo  para  que  procure  los 
negocios  tocantes  a  toda  la  inquisicion  destos  reinos  e  que  sea  pagado 
competentemente  de  los  bienes  confiscados  por  el  delicto  de  la  heregia 
e  apostasia  que  pertinescen  a  sus  altezas  e  que  asi  lo  mandan  a  sus 
tesoreros. 

3.  Item  por  quanto  en  tiempo  de  Sixto  papa  quarto  de  buena  me- 
moria  hemanaran  de  la  corte  Romana  algunos  rescriptos  e  bulas  e  con- 
fesionarios  exorvitantes  e  contra  derecho  mucho  en  perjuicio  de  la 
inquisicion  e  ministros  della,  mandan  sus  altezas  que  se  libren  cartas 
e  provisiones  que  juntas  sean  generales  para  todo  el  reino  con  las 
quales  se  impida  e  pueda  impedir  jvistamente  la  ejecucion  de  los  tales 
rescriptos  e  bulas,  si  alguno  los  impetrare  e  quisiere  usar  dellos  fasta 
que  con  el  papa  sea  consultado  e  informado  de  la  verdad  por  parte 
de  sus  altezas,  por  quanto  no  es  de  presumir  que  la  intencion  del  santo 
padre  sea  dar  impedimento  en  los  negocios  de  la  santa  fe  catolica, 
pero  que  las  dichas  provisiones  de  sus  altezas  no  se  publiquen  fasta 
ver  si  el  papa  Inoscencio  octavo  moderno  algunas  bulas  6  requisitos 
concede  6  de  lugar  que  se  expidan  en  su  corte  en  perjuicio  de  la 
sancta  inquisicion. 

4.  Item  es  la  merced  de  sus  altezas  porque  los  inquisidores  e  sus 
oficiales  clerigos  que  trabajan  en  la  dicha  inquisicion  sean  aprove- 
chados  e  honrados  de  mandar  a  sus  embaj adores  que  procuren  en  su 
nombre  un  indulto  del  papa  para  que  sus  altezas  puedan  nombrar  a 
las  dichas  personas  de  la  dicha  inquisicion  en  ciertas  iglesias  de  sus 
reinos  en  las  primeras  dignidades  e  beneficios  que  vacaren  6  que 
aquellos  sean  reservados  para  los  nombrados  de  sus  altezas. 


DOCUMENTS  573 

5.  Otrosi  mandan  sus  altezas  que  por  quanto  tienen  por  bien  de 
hacer  merced  de  sus  bienes  a  todos  aquellos  que  como  quier  que 
fuesen  culpados  en  el  delicto  de  la  heretica  pravedat  se  reconciliaren 
bien  e  como  deben  en  el  tiempo  de  la  gracia  que  los  tales  reconciliados 
puedan  cobrar  qualesquier  debdas  de  qualesquier  tiempo  que  les 
fuesen  debidas  para  si  e  que  su  fisco  no  les  embargue  asi  mesmo 
si  algunos  bienes  muebles  e  raices  hay  an  vendido,  dado  6  otorgado  6 
obligado  antes  de  su  reconciliacion  que  los  dichos  contractos  queden 
firmos  a  las  personas  que  administren  los  dichos  bienes  porque  es  la 
merced  de  sus  altezas  e  mandan  que  los  dichos  reconciliados  no  puedan 
vender  ni  enagenar  ni  obligar  dende  en  adelante  los  bienes  raices  que 
tovieren  sin  especial  Ucentia  de  sus  altezas  porque  quieren  ser  primero 
informados  de  como  guardan  la  santa  fe  catolica  e  si  son  verdadera- 
mente  convertido  a  ella. 

6.  Item  como  quiera  que  sus  altezas  no  tienen  por  bien  de  hacer 
gracia  de  los  bienes  a  los  hereges  e  apostatas  que  fueron  reconciliados 
fuera  del  tiempo  de  la  gracia  para  la  reconciliacion  y  4es  pertinezcan 
todos  los  bienes  de  los  hereges  condempnados  e  reconciliados  desde 
el  dia  que  cometieron  el  dicho  delicto  de  la  heregia  segun  el  derecho 
dispone  y  podria  el  jfisco  de  sus  altezas  demandar  los  bienes  que  los 
tales  ovieren  vendido  6  enagenado  en  qualquier  manera  e  escusarse 
de  pagar  las  debdas  que  los  tales  debiesen  por  qualquier  obligaciones, 
salvo  si  en  lugar  de  las  tales  ventas  e  enagenaciones  paresciere  y  se 
hallare  el  prescio  e  otra  cosa  equivalente  en  los  bienes  de  los  tales 
hereges,  pero  por  mas  de  clemencia  e  umagnidad  con  sus  vasallos  y 
porque  si  algunos  con  buena  fe  contrataron  con  los  dichos  hereges 
que  no  sean  condempnados  que  sean  reconciliados  como  dicho  es 
hicieron  antes  que  comengase  el  aiio  de  setenta  e  nueve,  valgan  e  sean 
firmes,  con  tanto  que  se  prueben  legitimamente  por  testigos  dignos 
de  fe  6  por  scripturas  abtenticas  que  sean  verdaderas  e  no  simuladas 
en  tal  manera  que  si  alguna  persona  hiciere  alguna  ynfinta  6  simulacion 
en  fraude  del  fisco  cerca  de  qualquier  contrato  6  fuere  participante  en 
la  dicha  fraude  6  colusion  y  fuere  reconciliado  le  den  cient  azotes  y  le 
hierren  con  una  serial  de  hierro  en  el  rostro,  y  si  fuere  qualquier  otro 
que  no  sea  reconciliado  aunque  sea  cristiano  haya  perdido  todos  sus 
bienes  e  el  oficio  e  oficios  que  toviere  e  que  su  persona  quede  a  su 
merced  de  sus  altezas,  e  mandan  que  este  capitulo  sea  pregonado  pub- 
licamente  en  los  lugares  de  la  inquisicion  porque  ninguno  pueda  pre- 
tender ignorancia. 

7.  Otrosi  que  si  algun  caballero  de  los  que  han  acogido  6  acogieren 
en  sus  tierras  los  hereges  que  por  temor  de  la  inquisicion  huyan  y 
huyeron  de  las  cibdades,  villas  e  lugares  realengos  demandaren  quales- 
quier debdas  que  digan  series  debidas  por  qualesquier  hereges  que 
sean  huydos  a  sus  tierras  que  no  el  tesorero  no  les  pague  las  debdas 
ya  dichas  hi  el  juez  de  los  bienes  confiscados  se  las  mande  pagar  fasta 


574  APPENDIX 

que  los  dichos  caballeros  restituyan  todo  lo  que  los  dichos  confesos 
que  cogieron  en  sus  tierras  llevaron  consigo,  pues  es  cierto  que  aquella 
pertenescia  e  pertenesce  a  sus  altezas  e  que  si  sobre  tales  debdas  fuere 
puesta  demanda  al  procurador  fiscal  que  el  dicho  procurador  ponga 
por  reconvencion  e  compensacion  la  cantidad  en  que  poco  mas  6 
menos  le  parescere  que  es  obligado  el  caballero  que  pide  su  debda 
jurando  que  no  lo  alega  maliciosamente. 

8.  Otrosi  mandan  sus  altezas  que  ningun  tesorero  de  los  que  son 
6  fueren  puestos  para  recebir  e  recabdar  los  bienes  confiscados  por 
el  dicho  delicto  no  secresten  ni  occupen  bienes  de  ningund  herege  ni 
apostata  sin  mandamiento  especial  de  los  dichos  inquisidores  e  quando 
ellos  dieren  mandamiento  para  ello  hagase  la  secrestacion  por  su 
alguacil  e  por  ante  notario  de  la  inquisicion  e  por  antel  escribano  del 
tesorero  para  que  cada  uno  dellos  haga  registro  del  dicho  secresto  el 
qual  mandan  que  se  haga  en  personas  lianas  vecinos  del  lugar  que 
tengan  los  dichos  bienes  e  quel  tesorero  no  toque  en  ellos  fasta  que 
la  persona  cuyos  eran  los  dichos  bienes  sea  condenada  6  por  recon- 
ciliacion  declarada  que  fue  herege  e  manda  e  mandan  sus  altezas  que 
al  tiempo  de  la  secrestacion  se  oviere  de  hacer  el  tesorero  sea 
requerido  por  el  alguacil  para  que  vaya  a  ver  como  se  face. 

9  Que  si  en  los  bienes  asi  secrestados  como  dicho  es  oviere  e  se  fal- 
laren  algunas  cosas  que  guardandolas  se  perderian  asi  como  pan  e  vino 
e  otras  cosas  seme j antes  que  el  tesorero  procure  con  los  inquisidores 
que  las  manden  vender  e  al  presente  se  vendan  en  publica  almoneda 
e  que  el  prescio  de  las  tales  cosas  sea  puesto  en  el  dicho  secresto  en 
poder  de  los  dichos  secrestadores  6  en  un  cambio  como  mejor  los  dichos 
inquisidores  y  el  tesorero  vieren,  asi  mismo  si  algunos  bienes  raices 
ovieren  que  se  deban  arrendar  manden  los  dichos  inquisidores  al 
secrestador  que  juntamente  con  el  dicho  tesorero  los  arriende  en  pub- 
lica almoneda. 

10.  Otrosi  que  el  tesorero  no  venda  bienes  algunos  ni  reciba  dineros 
ni  qualesquier  bienes  algunos  otros  que  sean  confiscados  e  pertenescian 
al  fisco  de  sus  altezas  sin  que  esten  delante  de  dos  notarios  uno  suyo 
del  dicho  tesorero  e  otro  que  sea  puesto  por  mando  de  sus  altezas 
para  que  cada  uno  dellos  escriba  sobre  si  los  bienes  e  maravedises  que 
el  dicho  tesorero  rescibiere  e  haga  registro  e  libro  ordenado  de  todo 
ello  para  que  [de]  los  dichos  libros  e  registros  se  tomen  despues  las 
cuentas  al  dicho  recebdor. 

11.  Otrosi  mandan  sus  altezas  que  cada  uno  de  los  receb tores  que 
fueren  puestos  por  su  mandado  recabten  e  resciban  los  bienes  que  fueren 
de  los  herejes  vecinos  e  moradores  en  el  partido  donde  son  puestos  e 
no  se  entremetan  d,  ocupar  ni  tomar  bienes  de  ningun  hereje  que 
pertenezcan  a  otra  inquisicion  mas  que  luego  qualquier  de  los  dichos 
tesoreros  hobiere  noticia  de  algunos  bienes  confiscados  por  el  dicho 
delicto  que  pertenezcan  a  otro  tesorero  que  lo  hagan  luego  saber  para 


DOCUMENTS  575 

que  lo  cobre  e  recabte  so  pena  que  el  que  lo  encubriera  pierde  el  oficio 
6  sea  obligado  al  dano  e  menoscabo  que  por  su  negligencia  se  recres- 
ciere  al  patrimonio  de  sus  altezas  con  el  doblo. 

12.  Otrosi  mandan  sus  altezas  que  a  los  inquisidores  e  oficiales  que 
en  este  negocio  de  la  inquisicion  entienden  el  tesorero  les  pague  los 
terc'.os  de  sus  salarios  adelantados  en  el  principio  de  cada  tercio  porque 
tengan  que  comer  e  se  les  quite  ocasion  de  recebir  dadivas  e  que  es 
comience  el  tiempo  de  su  paga  desde  el  dia  que  salieren  de  sus  casas 
a  entender  en  la  dicha  inquisicion,  e  que  asi  mesmo  pague  los  men- 
sageros  que  a  sus  altezas  enviaren  los  dichos  inquisidores  e  qualquier 
otras  cosas  que  los  inquisidores  vieren  que  cumple  al  oficio  asi  como 
en  carceles  perpetuas  6  mantenimientos  de  los  presos  6  otras  quales- 
quier  cosas  e  espensas. 

13.  Item  que  todos  los  mandamientos  de  qualquier  calidad  que  sean 
que  los  inquisidores  mandaren  dar  asi  para  su  alguacil  como  para  su 
tesorero  6  para  qualesquier  otras  personas  cerca  de  los  bienes  6  prision 
de  las  personas  de  los  herejes,  los  negocios  de  la  inquisicion,  sean 
tenidos  de  los  asentar  e  asienten  en  sus  registros  e  hagan  libros  dellos 
aparte,  porque  si  alguna  dubda  se  ofresciere  se  pueda  saber  la  verdad 
de  lo  que  paso. 

14.  Otrosi  que  las  otras  cosas  que  aqui  no  son  declarados  queden  e 
se  remitan  a  la  buena  discreccion  de  los  inquisidores  para  que  si  se 
ofrescieren  casos  tales  que  a  su  parescer  se  puedan  espedir  sin  con- 
sular a  sus  altezas  hagan  segun  Dios  e  derecho  e  sus  buenas  concien- 
cias  lo  que  les  paresciere  e  en  las  cosas  graves  escriban  luego  con 
diligencia  a  sus  altezas  e  a  mi  el  dicho  procurador  para  que  sus  altezas 
manden  proveer  en  ello  como  cumpla  al  servicio  de  Dios  nuestro  senor 
e  suyo,  ensalzamiento  de  nuestra  sancta  fe  catolica  e  a  buena  edifica- 
cion  de  la  cristiandad.  Dada  en  la  ciudad  de  Sevilla,  seis  dias  del  mes 
de  Deziembre,  ano  del  nascimiento  de  nuestro  Salvador  Jesucristo, 
de  mil  6  quatrocientos  e  ochenta  e  quatro  anos. 


576  APPENDIX 

IV. 

Torquemada's  Instructions  to  Inquisitors,  Jan.,  1485.* 

(Archivio  General  de  Simancas,  Consejo  de  la  Inquisicion, 
Libro  933). 
(See  p.  182). 

La  Forma  que  se  debe  tener  en  el  proceder  de  los  Inquisidores  es  la 

siguiente. 

Primeramente  que  los  inquisidores  loego  en  legando  en  el  lugar 
donde  se  ha  de  facer  la  inquisicion  pongan  sus  cartas  e  edictos  de 
treinta  6  quarenta  dias  6  como  mejor  visto  les  fuese  que  todos  los  que 
en  algun  caso  de  heregia  6  apostasia  se  fallaran  culpados  y  en  este 
dicho  tiempo  vernan  con  dolor  sin  fuerza  ninguna  a  confesar  sus 
errores  y  diran  la  verdad  de  todo  lo  que  supiere  no  solamente  de  si 
mesmos  mas  de  los  otros  que  con  ellos  participaren  en  el  dicho  error, 
que  estos  tales  scan  recebidos  con  toda  caridad,  y  abjurando  sus 
errores  en  forma  les  sean  dadas  penitencias  pubhcas  6  secretas  segun 
la  infamia  6  calidad  del  delito  a  alvedrio  de  los  inquisidores  y  denseles 
algunas  penitencias  pecuniarias  que  paguen  en  cierto  tiempo,  y  estos 
dineros  sean  puestos  en  mano  de  una  persona  liable  y  den  los  inquisi- 
dores 6  los  escribanos  la  copia  dellos  al  rey  nuestro  senor  6  a  mi  como 
a  inquisidor  principal,  para  que  se  gasten  en  la  guerra  6  en  otras  obras 
pias  y  para  que  se  paguen  los  salarios  de  los  inquisidores  y  otros  min- 
istros  que  en  la  santa  inquisicion  entenderan,  y  seanles  dexados  todas 
los  otros  bienes  que  tuvieren  asi  mobles  como  raices,  y  cerca  de  los 
oficios  publicos  que  tienen  deben  por  ahora  ser  privados  fasta  que  se 
vea  su  forma  de  vevir,  y  si  fueren  buenos  cristianos  y  conocidamente 
se  viere  la  enmienda  en  ellos  pueden  ser  habilitados  para  que  ayan 
los  dichos  oficios  si  fueren  vacos  6  otros  semejables. 

1.  Otrosi  si  despues  del  tiempo  del  edicto  algunos  vinieren  a  se 
reconciliar,  los  quales  non  dejaron  de  venir  por  temor  ni  por  menos- 
precio  mas  por  enfermedad  6  por  otro  justo  impedimento,  que  con 
estos  tales  se  use  de  misericordia  como  en  el  capitulo  primero,  pero  si 
al  tiempo  que  se  vinieren  a  reconciliar  fueron   ya  citados  6  tienen 


^  These  instructions  partly  repeat  and  partly  supplement  those  of  December, 
1484.  So  far  as  I  am  aware  they  are  inedited.  They  are  not  in  the  Granada 
edition  of  the  Instructions,  nor  do  they  correspond  with  the  fragments  printed 
by  Arguello  (Instrucciones  del  Santo  Oficio,  Madrid,  1630,  fol.  16-23)  as  the 
Instructions  of  January,  1485,  and  by  Llorente,  Anales,  I,  96-99,  388-94. 


DOCUMENTS  ^         517 

contra  si  provantes,  estos  non  gocen  de  la  gracia  de  los  bienes,  pero 
los  inquisidores  se  hayan  con  ellos  misericordiosamente  quanto  de 
derecho  y  buena  conciencia  podieren  facer  segun  la  calidad  del  delito 
e  infamia  requiere  e  segund  esto  consultando  con  el  rey  nuestro  senor 
se  vera  si  se  debiera  fazer  gracia  de  los  bienes  6  no. 

2.  Otrosi  si  a  estos  que  asi  bien  se  vinieren  a  reconciliar  son  debidas 
algunas  deudas,  que  los  deudores  sean  obligados  sin  embargo  del  fisco 
a  ge  les  pagar,  y  si  algunas  ventas  de  sus  bienes  ovieren  fechas  que 
valgan  y  que  por  parte  del  fisco  del  rey  nuestro  senor  no  les  sean 
impedidos,  pero  si  estos  tales  tovieren  esclavos  cristianos  que  sean 
libres  y  forros,  y  si  los  hobieren  vendido  los  que  les  compraren  non 
los  puedan  retener  mas  que  luego  los  dejen  forros  y  ellos  recauden  el 
precio  de  los  vendidores. 

3.  Otrosi  si  algunos  de  los  susodichos  que  se  vinieren  A  reconciliar 
y  no  dizieren  la  verdad  de  sus  errores  e  de  los  que  fueron  particioneros 
con  ellos  e  despues  se  fallaren  por  las  probanzas  el  contrario,  estos 
tales  sean  havidos  por  contumaces  e  que  vinieron  fingidos  a  la  con- 
fesion,  no  gocen  de  nada  de  lo  susodicho  mas  antes  se  proceda  contra 
ellos  con  todo  rigor  segun  que  el  derecho  en  tal  caso  dispone. 

4.  Otrosi  que  ningun  receptor  debe  sequestrar  bienes  de  ningun 
herege  nin  apostata  sin  especial  mandamiento  en  escrito  de  los  inquisi- 
dores e  que  se  pongan  los  tales  bienes  no  en  manos  del  receptor  mas 
en  manos  de  una  persona  fiable  y  que  hagan  el  secuestro  el  receptor 
con  el  alguacil  de  la  inquisicion  y  por  delante  de  dos  escribanos,  uno 
del  alguazil  y  otro  del  receptor,  y  estos  escribanos  cada  una  escriba 
por  si  todo  lo  que  se  sequestrare,  y  sean  pagados  los  dichos  escribanos 
de  los  bienes  de  los  dichos  hereges  aunque  despues  se  hayan  de  recon- 
ciliar, y  el  salario  sea  lo  que  los  inquisidores  mandaren. 

5.  Otrosi  si  algunos  fueren  absentados  antes  del  tiempo  del  edicto 
y  asi  mesmo  absentaren  sus  bienes  y  estos  tales  vinieren  en  el  tiempo 
del  dicho  edicto  confesando  sus  errores  como  arriba  dicho  es,  gocen 
de  la  misma  gracia  de  los  bienes  e  fagase  con  ellos  en  la  misma  forma 
que  en  el  capitulo  primero  esta  escrito,  pero  si  en  el  tiempo  del  edicto 
non  quisieren  venir  procedase  contra  ellos  segun  que  en  este  caso  el 
derecho  dispone. 

6.  Otrosi  que  ni  por  los  procesos  de  los  vivos  se  deben  de  dejar  de 
facer  los  de  los  muertos  e  los  que  se  fallaren  aver  seydo  e  muerto 
como  herejes  6  judios  los  deben  desenterrar  para  que  se  quemen  y  dar 
lugar  al  fisco  para  que  occupe  los  bienes  segun  que  de  derecho  se  debe 
facer. 

7.  Otrosi  que  el  receptor  no  venda  bienes  ningunos  ni  reciba  sin  que 
esten  dos  escribanos  delante,  los  quales  sean  puestos  6  por  manos  del 
rey  nuestro  senor  6  de  los  inquisidores  y  cada  uno  dellos  escriba  el 
bienes  que  el  receptor  recibe  y  el  precio  por  que  los  vende  porque 
despues  por  aquellos  libros  se  les  tomaran  las  quentas. 

37 


578 


APPENDIX 


8.  Otrosi  que  a  los  inquisidores  y  oficiales  que  en  este  sancto  negocio 
entienden  les  debe  el  receptor  pagar  sus  tercios  adelantados,  porque 
tengan  de  comer  y  se  les  quiten  la  ocasion  de  recebir  dadivas  de  ninguno 
y  debe  de  comenzar  el  tiempo  de  su  pago  desdel  dia  que  salieren  de 
sus  casas  para  entender  en  este  sancto  negocio. 

9.  Otrosi  que  continuamente  los  inquisidores  fagan  saber  al  rey 
nuestro  seiior  e  a  mi  todas  las  cosas  que  sucedieren  en  la  dicha  inquisi- 
cion  e  conoscieren  que  se  deban  escrevir,  e  que  el  receptor  loego  que  por 
ellos  le  sera  mandado  pague  el  trotero  que  ellos  quieran  enviar. 

10.  Otrosi  que  todos  los  mandamientos  de  qualquier  calidad  que 
sean  que  los  inquisidores  mandaren  dar  asi  al  alguazil  como  al  receptor 
6  a  otras  qualesquier  personas  manden  a  los  escribanos  de  la  inquisicion 
los  asienten  en  sus  registros  porque  por  alli  se  conozca  la  verdad  de 
todo  lo  que  pasare. 

11.  Otrosi  que  los  inquisidores  y  el  asesor  esten  juntos  y  muy  con- 
formes  en  la  ejecucion  de  la  justicia  y  buena  administracion  della  y 
finalmente  en  todo  quanto  pertenece  e  se  habra  de  facer  en  la  inquisi- 
cion, de  manera  que  ni  el  inquisidor  sin  el  asesor  ni  el  asesor  sin  el 
inquisidor  faga  cosa  alguna,  e  si  lo  ficieren  que  por  el  mismo  caso  sea 
ninguno. 

12.  Otrosi  que  esten  los  inquisidores  e  todos  los  oficiales  de  la  inqui- 
sicion aposentados  dentro  de  una  casa,  podiendose  haber,  porque  esten 
juntamente  e  que  quando  ovieren  de  escrebir  dichos  negocios  de  la 
inquisicion  e  del  estado  della  escriban  los  inquisidores  y  el  asesor  junta- 
mente. 

13.  Otrosi  que  ningun  oficial  de  la  dicha  inquisicion  no  tiene  ningun 
derecho  por  cosa  ninguna  de  su  oficio  pues  que  el  rey  nuestro  senor  les 
manda  dar  svi  mantenemiento  razonable  y  les  fara  mercedes  andando 
el  tiempo  e  faciendo  ellos  lo  que  deben  e  que  no  recivan  dadivas  ni 
subornaceones  de  ninguna  persona  y  si  se  fallare  que  alguno  el  con- 
trario  ficiere  por  el  mismo  caso  sea  privado  del  oficio  y  mas  este  a  la 
pena  que  los  inquisidores  darle  quisieren,  e  a  un  cada  vez  que  un  tal 
caso  conteciere  informen  a  su  alteza  del  rey  nuestro  seiior  porque  se 
provea  de  otro  oficial  y  entre  tanto  se  ponga  otro  en  lugar  del  tal  delin- 
quente  aquel  que  los  inquisidores  acordaren  fasta  que  el  rey  nuestro 
seiior  e  yo  proveamos. 

14.  Otrosi  que  en  todas  las  otras  cosas  que  a  la  santa  inquisicion  se 
requieren  queda  a  juicio  y  buena  discrecion  de  los  inquisidores  que 
ellos  las  fagan  segun  Dios  e  derecho  e  buenas  conciencias  se  deben 
facer,  y  si  algunas  otras  cosas  vieren  que  el  rey  nuestro  seiior  debe 
remediar  las  escriban  y  que  se  faran  como  cumple  al  servicio  de  Jesu- 
cristo  nuestro  seiior  y  ensalzamiento  de  su  santa  fe  y  buena  edificacion 
de  la  cristiandad. 

Fr.  Thomas,  prior  et  inquisitor  generalis. 


DOCUMENTS  579 


Instructions  of  Seville,  1500.^ 

(Archivo  General  de  Simancas,  Consejo  de  la  Inquisicion,  Libro  933). 

(See  p.  182) . 

Otras  Instituciones. 

Las  capitulaciones  infraescritas  que  ordinaron  los  muy  reverendos 
senores  inquisidores  generales  para  instruccion  de  los  inquisidores  e 
prosecueion  del  oficio  de  la  sancta  inquisicion  en  la  muy  noble  e  muy 
leal  cibdad  de  Sevilla  a  diez  e  siete  dias  del  mes  de  Junio  ano  de  mil  y 
quinientos. 

1.  Primeramente  que  los  inquisidores  de  cada  una  inquisicion  e 
partido  salgan  e  vayan  a  todos  los  lugares  e  villas  de  sus  diocesis 
e  partidos  donde  nunca  fueron  personalmente  e  en  cada  una  de  las 
dichas  villas  e  lugares  hagan  e  resciban  los  testigos  de  la  general 
inquisicion,  e  para  que  esto  puedan  mejor  hacer  e  mas  brevemente  se 
espida,  se  aparten  los  inquisidores  e  vaya  cada  uno  por  su  parte  con 
un  notario  del  secreto  para  rescebir  la  dicha  pesquisa  e  informacion 
general,  e  despues  de  rescibida  e  hecha  la  dicha  pesquisa  general  se 
tornen  a  juntar  en  la  cibdad  6  lugar  donde  tovieren  su  asiento  para 
que  alii  vista  por  amos  la  testificacion  que  cada  uno  ha  tornado  puedan 
mandar  prender  a  los  que  se  hallaren  culpados  e  testificados  suficiente- 
mente  para  se  poder  prender  segun  se  contiene  en  el  capitulo  de  las 
instruc clones  hechas  en  Toledo. 

2.  Item,  que  en  las  inquisiciones  donde  los  inquisidores  han  andado 
e  recebido  la  general  testificacion  que  cada  ano  el  uno  de  los  inquisi- 
dores saiga  por  las  villas  y  lugares  a  inquerir,  poniendo  sus  edictos 
generales  para  los  que  algo  saben  tocante  al  crimen  de  la  heregia  que 
lo  venga  a  decir,  y  el  otro  inquisidor  quede  a  hacer  los  procesos  que  d 
la  sazon  oviere,  e  si  no  abra  algunos  saiga  cada  uno  por  su  parte  segun 
arriba  esta  dicho. 

3.  Item,  que  los  inquisidores  de  cada  inquisicion  pasen  los  libros 
ordinariamente  por  sus  abecedarios  dende  el  primero  fasta  el  fin,  para 
lo  qual  se  ayuden  del  fiscal  e  notarios  quando  non  andovieren  por  los 
lugares  d  tomar  la  testificacion  como  dicho  es. 

Sobre  esto  capitulo  se  ha  de  hacer  principal  relacion  en  la  visitacion 
de  manera  que  han  de  saber  los  inquisidores  generales  que  es  lo  que 
han  procedido  de  los  dichos  abecedarios. 

*  Both  the  Granada  edition  of  1537  and  Arguello  print  only  the  first  four 
articles  of  these  Instructions.  Llorente  describes  them  (Anales,  I,  261)  as  being 
in  seven  articles  of  which  the  last  two  are  not  in  this  original  document. 


580  APPENDIX 

4.  Item,  por  quanto  los  inquisidores  algunas  veces  proceden  por 
cosas  livianas  non  continentes  herexia  derechamente  y  por  la  palabras 
que  mas  son  blasfemias  que  herejias,  6  dichas  con  enojo  6  yra,  que  de 
aqui  adelante  no  se  prenden  ningunos  desta  calidad,  e  si  dubda  oviere 
que  lo  consulten  con  los  inquisidores  generales. 

5.  Item,  quando  prendieren  alguno  por  el  dicho  crimen  de  herejia 
en  poniendole  la  acusacion  envien  la  copia  della  a  los  inquisidores 
generales  y  la  probanza  que  tienen  contra  el  verba  ad  verbum  decla- 
rando  los  nombres  de  los  testigos  y  las  calidades  de  las  personas  y  esto 
envien  con  el  nuncio  de  la  inquisicion  a  buen  recabdo. 

6.  Item,  que  los  inquisidores  non  consientan  dilacion  en  los  procesos 
e  procedan  sumariamente  segun  la  forma  del  derecho  que  en  este  case 
de  la  herejia  habla. 

7.  Item,  que  los  inquisidores  de  aqui  adelante  non  dispensen  con  los 
que  fueren  condempnados  a  carcel  perpetua  ni  les  comuten  la  dicha 
carcel  en  otra  penitencia  e  quando  esta  facultad  de  dispensar  e  comu- 
tar  la  dicha  carcel  los  dichos  inquisidores  generales  les  reservan  para  si 
la  dicha  facultad  e  poder  que  ninguno  otro  pueda  dispensar  e  comutar. 

8.  Item,  que  a  los  testigos  conpurgadores  no  les  sean  leidos  los  dichos 
e  dipusciones  de  los  testigos  del  crimen  que  hay  contra  el  acusado  en 
la  acusacion  del  fiscal,  sino  que  guarde  la  forma  del  derecho  que  es 
que  el  acusado  ha  de  jurar  juxta  form  am  juris  que  el  [niega]  el  crimen 
de  lo  que  esta  asentado,  ante  los  dichos  testigos  compurgadores,  e  que 
a  ellos  se  les  pregunte  si  creen  que  juro  verdad  6  no,  sin  hacerles  otras 
preguntas. 

9.  Item,  los  inquisidores  trabajen  con  los  procesados  que  estaran 
bien  testificados  para  poder  ser  condempnados  como  hagan  conosci- 
miento  de  su  culpa  y  la  confiesen  y  tengan  arrepentimiento,  trayendoles 
persuasiones  para  ello  e  si  fuere  menester  que  trayan  personas  religiosas 
que  los  conviertan  e  con  los  que  asi  no  estovieren  testiguados  tengan 
tiento  que  no  les  fagan  confesar  lo  que  no  hicieren. 

10.  Item,  que  los  inquisidores  pregunten  particularmente  a  los  per- 
sonas que  dieren  sus  confesiones  lo  que  saben  de  sus  padres  y  her- 
manos  y  parientes  e  de  otras  personas  qualesquiera  por  las  particu- 
laridades  que  se  requieren  porque  despues  no  se  puedan  escusar  por 
ignorancia,  e  lo  que  asi  digeren  de  otros  se  asiente  en  los  libros  e 
registros  de  oficio  aparte  de  las  dichas  confesiones. 


DOCUMENTS  58I 


VI. 

Extracts  from  the  Register  of  the  Receiver  of  Confiscations 
AT  Valencia,  1485-1486. 

(Archivo  General  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Registro  3684,  fol.  60). 

(See  p.  192). 

A  veynte  y  dos  de  julio  el  Rey  nuestro  senyor  me  mando  que  asen- 
tase  en  el  registro  como  su  Alteza  facia  merced  a  su  caballerizo  Johan 
de  Hoz  e  a  Martin  Navarro  su  repostero  de  plata  de  sendas  escrivanias 
de  aquellas  tres  que  estan  vacas  en  Toledo  porque  han  sido  privados 
dellas  por  el  delito  de  la  heregia  Pero  Gia  de  Alcuba  e  Alfonso  Cota 
e  Francisco  Rodriguez  escrivanos  de  numero  reconciliados. 

A  diez  y  ocho  de  agosto  de  ochenta  y  cinco  afios  plugo  al  Rey  nuestro 
sefior  de  librar  a  Johan  de  Tencino  en  los  bienes  de  los  herejes  que  a 
su  Alteza  pertenescan  6  perteneceran  de  aqui  en  adelante  en  los  reynos 
de  Aragon  aquellos  diez  mil  sueldos  de  que  le  hizo  merced  en  ayuda 
de  su  casamiento  e  aquellos  seys  mil  seyscientos  cincuenta  y  cinco 
sueldos  ocho  dineros  que  le  son  devidos  de  su  quitacion  con  alvalaes 
de  escribano  de  racion.  Se  mando  a  mi  que  por  memoria  lo  asentase 
en  este  registro. 

A  veynte  de  Agosto  de  lxxxv  me  mando  su  Alteza  que  asentase  en 
registro  como  faze  merced  a  Pedro  de  Morales  criado  de  Alfonso 
Carillo  protonotario  apostolico  de  una  escrivania  de  las  del  numero 
que  vacaran  por  el  delicto  de  la  heretica  pravedad  en  Toledo. 

A  XXII  de  enero  en  la  villa  de  Alcald,  fizo  merced  al  doctor  micer 
Felix  Ponte  regente  la  cancelleria  de  una  alqueria  que  Jaime  Martinez 

de  Santangel  tenia  en  el  termino  de cabe  la  ciudad  de  Valencia 

e  mando  a  mi  que  le  fiziere  la  provision  della. 

A  XXIV  de  enero  el  Rey  mi  senyor  fizo  merced  d  Juan  de  Leca 
aposentador  de  su  senyoria  de  uno  de  los  primeros  oficios  que  vacaran 
en  Segovia  por  el  reconciliacion  6  en  otra  manera  por  el  delicto  de  la 
heretica  pravedad. 

A  XIV  de  febrero  de  Lxxxvi  en  Alcala  de  Henares  el  Rey  nuestro 
senyor  me  mando  que  assentasse  en  registro  como  faze  merced  a  Martin 
de  Tavara  de  la  scrivania  del  numero  que  tiene  Pero  Alfonso  Cota 
reconciliado. 


582  APPENDIX 

VII. 

Brief  of  Julius  II  Respecting  the  Troubles  in  Cordova. 

(Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  III,  fol.  320). 
(See  p.  203). 

Venerabilis  f rater  salutem  etc.  Non  sine  summa  animi  molestia 
percipimus  quosdam  iniquitatis  filios  Catholicse  fidei  rebelles,  qui  cum 
Christiani  sint  Judaicae  se  perfidise  participes  prsestant,  officiales  a  te 
ad  inquirenda  hsereticae  pravitatis  errata  constitutes  Cordubse  quorun- 
dam  adminiculo  complicum  captivos  fecisse  et  quod  auditu  quoque 
nefarium  est  mulctatos  male  et  contumeliose  habitos  diu  in  vinculis 
detinuisse.  Quse  res  cum  pessimi  prorsus  et  perniciosissimi  sit  exempli, 
pro  cura  quae  Catholici  gregis  ab  hsereticorum  rabie  defendendi  una 
cum  apostolatus  officio  nobis  est  demandata  mature  providendum 
duximus,  ne  lues  tam  pestifera  serpat  ulterius  nee  sua  contagione 
rectos  commaculat.  Quam  ob  rem  fraternitati  tuae  cui  jam  pridie 
talia  perquirendi  facinora  et  reperta  puniendi  potestatem  arbitriumque 
contulimus  districte  mandamus  ut  commissum  sibi  munus  fervide  et 
severe  exerceat  ac  subnascentem  in  agro  dominico  zizaniam  abolere 
et  radicitus  extirpare  non  cesset,  fidelium  defensioni  ut  par  est  die 
noctuque  excubando.  Praefatos  vere  qui  tam  abominandum  scelus 
ausi  sunt  cum  suis  complicibus  et  quoscunque  eis  auxilium  consilium 
favoremve  ullum  praestiterunt  undique  conquisitos  ac  debitis  subjectis 
poenis  exemplum  cseteris  statuet  ne  aliquando  ad  peccati  similitudinem 
ex  impunitate  accendantur.  Volumus  autem  haec  omni  diligentia 
quamprimum  a  fraternitate  tua  curari  et  offici,  nam  exorientia  tabiferae 
pestis  capita  ne  serpant  in  ipsis  statim  principiis  sunt  opprimenda, 
ad  quod  per  ecclesiasticas  censuras  et  universa  juris  remedia  ut  magis 
expedire  videbitur,  appellatione  remota,  procedes,  in  contrarium  facien- 
tibus  non  obstantibus  quibuscunque.     Dat.  Bononiae.^ 


*  The  date  of  Bologna  fixes  the  time  of  this  brief  between  Nov.  10,  1506,  when 
Julius  II  entered  that  city,  and  Feb.  22,  1507,  when  he  left  it. — Raynald.  Annal. 
ann.  1506,  n,  30j  1507,  n.  2. 


DOCUMENTS  533 


VIII. 

Proposition  Made  in  October,  1519,  to  Charles  V  to  Compound 
FOR  the  Confiscations. 

(Archivo  General  de  Simancas.    Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Legajo 

ilnico,  fol.  49). 
(See  p.  219). 

Sy  en  las  cosas  de  la  inquisicion  se  pone  orden  de  justicia  por  jueces 
no  sospechosos  que  guarden  el  derecho  e  den  cuenta  de  lo  que  hicieren, 
para  que  los  buenos  puedan  bevir  seguros  y  los  que  mal  bivieren  sean 
castigados  como  nuestro  muy  santo  padre  lo  ordenare  e  mandare  e  las 
bulas  e  breves  que  sobre  ello  dieren  sean  obedecidas  e  cumplidas  como 
de  justicia  e  conciencia  no  se  puede  otra  cosa  hazer,  avra  personas 
que  osaran  servir  al  Rey  nuestro  senor  en  esta  manera. 

Habida  consideracion  que  la  codicia  de  los  bienes  es  causa  de  todos 
los  malos,  e  que  es  ley  en  los  reynos  de  Castilla  en  las  partidas  que 
no  sean  confiscados  los  bienes  de  los  que  tovieren  hijos  catolicos  e  que 
a  los  principes  queda  muy  poco  provecho  de  la  confiscacion  porque 
todo  se  gasta  en  salarios,  costa  de  jueces  e  recebtores  que  de  ello 
enriquecen,  puede  su  Mag*^  justamente  servirle  por  compusicion  e 
venta  que  haga  de  todo  el  derecho  que  le  pertinece  a  el  e  a  sus  descen- 
dientes  para  syempre  jamas  de  la  confiscacion  de  los  bienes  de  la  dicha 
inquisicion  en  todos  sus  reynos  e  senorios  abiendo  para  ello  bula  de 
nuestro  muy  santo  padre  en  que  asi  mismo  se  mande  y  ordene  que  no 
pueda  aber  condenacion  de  bienes  ni  dineros  por  via  de  penitencia  ni 
en  otra  manera.  Por  lo  qual  y  por  lo  que  se  debe  hasta  agora  de  las 
confiscaciones  e  penas  e  compusiciones  pasadas  por  qualesquier  per- 
sonas en  qualquier  manera — dando  para  ello  las  provisiones  e  jueces 
que  fueron  menester — se  dara  por  esto  a  su  Magestad  quatrocientos 
mill  ducados;  los  cien  mill  ducados  de  ellos  para  el  tiempo  de  su  partida 
al  ymperio,  e  los  trecientos  mill  en  tres  anos  puestos  en  Flandes  en 
las  ferias  de  Emberes  del  mes  de  mayo  de  cada  ano  cien  mill  ducados. 

Y  si  paresciere  algun  inconveniente  que  esto  se  haga  a  perpetuo, 
aunque  no  le  ay,  abida  consideracion  a  la  dicha  ley  del  reyno,  y  su 
Magestad  fuere  servido  que  sea  por  algun  tiempo  limitado,  por  el 
tiempo  que  fuere  declarado  por  S.  M.  se  daran  doscientos  mill  ducados, 
los  cinquenta  mill  para  la  partida  e  los  ciento  e  cinquenta  mill  ducados 
en  las  dichas  tres  herias  de  enberes. 

E  por  que  los  jueces  diputados  para  tan  santo  oficio  estan  mas  libres 
para  hacer  justicia  sin  esperar  de  sostinerse  de  los  bienes  de  los  presos 
e  su  magestad  no  tenga  que  pagar  salarios  pues  no  ha  de  haber  con- 
fiscacion demas  de  lo  que  asi  se  ha  de  dar  por  la  dicha  confiscacion  se 


584  APPENDIX 

comprara  larenta  que  fuere  menester  a  vista  edeterminacion  e  modera- 
cion  de  su  magestad  para  pagar  todos  los  salaries  e  cosas  de  la  dicha 
inquisicion  sobre  lo  que  ya  esta  comprado  e  consynado  para  ello  en 
algunas  partes,  comprandolo  de  la  manera  e  segund  que  el  rey  catolico 
lo  tenya  mandado  e  yomenfado  a  comprar. 

E  para  la  cobranza  de  lo  susodicho  se  ha  de  dar  otras  tales  cartas 
e  provisiones  como  las  que  dio  el  rey  catolico  para  cobrar  las  com- 
pusyciones  del  Andalucia  e  las  que  mas  fuere  menester,  e  para  remediar 
qualquier  agrabio  que  syntieren  los  que  esto  ovieren  de  pagar  e  proveer 
en  ello  e  en  la  cobranga  dello,  lo  que  fuere  necesario  que  se  cometa  al 
arzobispo  de  Toledo  o  a  su  gobernador  para  en  los  Reynos  de  la  corona 
de  Castilla,  y  el  arzobispo  de  ^aragoya  para  los  reynos  de  la  corona 
de  Aragon,  para  que  ellos  o  las  personas  a  quien  le  cometieren  conozcan 
de  ello  e  lo  provean  syn  pleyto,  e  no  otros  jueces  algunos,  remota 
apelacion. 

E  abiendo  efeto  lo  susodicho  sy  S.  M.  fuere  servido  de  dar  poderes  e 
provisiones  bastantes  para  cobrar  e  componer  e  ygualar  todo  lo  que  le 
es  debido  y  pertenece  en  qualquier  manera  en  los  dichos  sus  reynos  e 
senorios  de  qualquier  otras  confiscaciones  e  penas  pertenecientes  a  la 
camera  e  fisco  por  las  leyes  e  prematicas  de  los  dichos  reynos  o  en  otra 
manera  e  qualesquier  bienes  que  estan  confiscados  e  adjudicados  por 
delitos  de  que  no  este  hecha  merced  e  las  tengan  qualesquier  personas 
de  qualesquier  tiempos  pasados  hasta  en  fin  de  este  ano,  y  le  pertene- 
ciere  de  aqui  adelante  en  estos  quatro  afios  venideros  que  se  cumplan 
en  fin  del  ano  de  quinientos  e  veynte  e  tres,  e  que  entre  en  esto  lo  que 
qualesquier  personas  de  su  voluntad  vinieren,  declarando  que  son  en 
cargo,  de  que  tengan  finequito  e  no  aya  memoria  ni  recabdo  por  donde 
se  le  puede  pedir  quenta,  e  se  puedan  componer  e  cobrar  lo  que  dieren, 
e  por  esto  sanearan  a  S.  M.  cien  mil  ducados  pagados  en  la  dichas  tres 
ferias  de  enberes,  e  sy  mas  vaUere  lo  susodicho  sea  para  S.  M.  quitando 
las  costas  e  el  salario  que  S.  M.  fuere  serbido  de  dar  por  ello,  e  que  si 
alguna  merced  o  libranza  se  hiciere  de  bienes  6  maravedises  en  lo 
susodicho  durante  este  tiempo  se  reciba  en  cuenta. 

E  porque  para  el  cumplimiento  de  todo  lo  susodicho  se  ha  de  dar 
seguridad  bastante  de  personas  que  se  obliguen  a  ello,  se  han  de  dar 
luego  cedulas  de  S.  M.  libradas  del  S''  Cardenal  por  donde  de  licencia 
e  facultad  a  las  personas  que  en  ello  quisieren  entender  e  obligarse  e 
contribuir,  que  lo  puedan  hazer  syn  que  por  ello  incurran  ni  se  les  pida 
pena  ni  achaque  alguno  de  parte  de  la  ynquisicion  ni  por  otras  jus- 
ticias,  las  quales  cedulas  se  han  de  dar  en  todo  este  mes  de  otubre,  si 
los  dineros  han  de  estar  prestos  para  la  partida,  porque  de  otra  manera 
faltaria  tiempo. 


DOCUMENTS  535 

IX. 

Memorial  from   Granada  to   Charles  V  in   1526. 

(Archivo  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inquisicion,  Legajo  ilnico, 

fol.  55). 
(See  p.  222). 

Vuestra  Magestad  manda  e  a  mandado  poner  la  Sancta  Inquisicion 
en  esta  Ciudad  y  Reyno  de  Granada,  lo  qual  es  muy  loable  y  muy  santo 
por  que  se  vea  de  creer  que  la  intencion  y  voluntad  de  Vuestra  Mages- 
tad es  que  los  malos  christianos  sean  castigados  y  los  bonos  sean  cono- 
cidos,  y  por  que  en  la  manera  de  proceder  en  el  Sancto  Officio  pasan 
mas  peligros  los  que  buenos  son  que  los  que  mal  biben,  asy  de  ser 
presos  como  condenados  sin  culpa  segun  que  muchas  veces  a  acaecido, 
todos  los  que  bien  biben  y  son  catolicos  christianos  suplican  a 
Vuestra  Magestad  mande  enmendar  la  manera  de  proceder  en  que 
los  testigos  y  carceles  sean  publicos  como  lo  son  en  el  pecado  abom- 
inable y  contra  natura,  que  como  en  este  son  conocidos  y  castigados  los 
malos  asy  lo  seran  en  este  otro,  y  los  que  son  buenos  y  bilDen  bien 
estaran  seguros  de  ser  acusados  falsemente,  y  por  que  Vuestra  Mages- 
tad use  de  tan  justa  peticion  y  misericordia  con  los  que  buenos  son, 
de  solo  este  pequeno  Reyno  de  granada,  serviran  a  Vuestra  Magestad 
con  cinquenta  mill  ducados  para  los  gastos  de  este  tan  sancto  viage 
sin  lo  que  mas  Vuestra  Magestad  podra  aver  de  los  otros  sus  Reynos 
y  Seiiorios  que  sera  en  grandisima  suma  de  dinero,  y  quitando  este 
mucho  secreto  escusera  Vuestra  Magestad  los  incombenientes  de  peca- 
dos  siguientes. 

Lo  primero  que  si  los  jueces  son  malos  como  puede  acaecer  por  ser 
hombres  humanos  y  no  Santos  como  lo  es  el  Officio,  quando  prenden 
doncellas  y  casadas  de  buenos  justos  y  mogas,  6  quando  las  mandan 
venir  secretamente  ante  si  como  el  Officio  requiere  en  su  mano  sepan 
usar  de  ellos  como  cosa  suya,  lo  qual  ligeramente  ya  sentiran  con  el 
gran  temor  que  lleban,  y  esto  no  habra  lugar  de  se  hacer  en  juicio 
publico. 

Y  la  otra,  que  los  escribanos  de  este  secreto  y  los  officiales  que  en 
este  secreto  tienen  mano,  seyendo  mancebos,  como  en  algunas  partes 
lo  son,  tienen  6  casi  ban  de  hacer  lo  misma  con  hijas  6  mugeres  6 
parientas  de  presos,  las  quales  ligeramente  puedan  alcanzar,  y  les 
sera  concedido  por  saber  algo  de  este  secreto  que  les  combenga,  6  sf 
fuesen  malas  personas  como  entre  los  hombres  se  hallan,  tambien 
tienen  ocasion  de  bender  por  dineros  este  secreto,  por  que  los  que  asy 
son  malos  con  fin  de  ser  aprovechados  procuran  estos  officios,  lo  qual 
todo  se  quita  con  hacer  la  justicia  publica. 

En  lo  otro  tienen  a  causa  de  este  secreto  que  muchas  animas  que 


586  APPENDIX 

se  han  condenado  al  ynfierno  e  se  pueden  condenar  por  ser  tan  falsas, 
escusarseles  a  este  camino,  que  por  poder  decir  lo  que  dicen  secreto 
muy  ligeramente  se  condenan  y  dicen  lo  que  no  vieron  por  aver  ven- 
ganza  de  quien  tienen  mala  voluntad  como  cada  dia  a  sucedido,  sy 
quando  Dios  le  hace  merced  al  falsamente  acusado  que  se  da  por 
bueno  sale  destruydo  demas  de  la  infamia  de  su  prision,  lo  qual  se 
escusaria  seyendo  los  testigos  publicos. 

E  lo  otro  que  para  que  el  que  falsamente  se  acusa  no  tenga  remedio, 
puedense  buscar  los  testigos  por  dineros,  los  quales  por  estos  pecados 
se  hallan  oy  con  poco  trabajo,  y  como  el  acusado  no  los  conosca  y  lo 
que  le  acusan  nunca  hiso  ni  penso  no  puede  caer  en  los  acusadores,  y 
aunque  cayga  en  su  enemigo  contrario  que  lo  hiso  atestiguar,  y  como 
los  jueces  no  sepan  este  secreto  condenan  justamente  y  el  falsamente 
acusado  muere  sin  culpa,  y  quedan  sus  hijos  y  debdos  infamados  para 
siempre  jamas,  lo  qual  no  se  podria  hacer  seyendo  publicos  los  testigos. 

E  lo  otro  que  como  los  que  son  malas  personas  y  malos  cristianos 
tengan  y  tienen  odio  y  mala  voluntad  a  los  que  son  buenos  porque  no 
siguen  sus  malos  costumbres  y  obras :  diz  que  por  sus  delitos  son  presos 
y  los  confiesan;  los  primeros  que  acusan  son  los  que  saben  que  biben 
bien,  por  vengarse  de  ellos,  y  a  estos  les  da  lugar  el  secreto,  que  si 
publico  lo  obieren  de  decir  no  tendrian  osadia  de  decir  la  mentira  a  la 
clara,  por  que  se  les  probaria  luego  el  contrario,  y  por  este  tienen 
menos  seguridad  los  buenos  que  los  malos,  que  como  no  hicieron  ni 
pensaron  lo  que  les  acusan  ni  conoscan  por  platica  ni  conversacion  a 
los  acusadores  ni  por  ventura  saben  sus  nombres  no  pueden  caer  ni 
acertar  en  ellos,  y  desta  manera  son  condenados  justamente  y  mueren 
sin  culpa  por  que  no  quieren  conocer  lo  que  no  hicieron,  y  quedan 
destruydos  sus  hijos  y  debdos  y  disfamados,  los  quales  seyendo  los 
testigos  publicos  no  se  podria  hacer. 

E  lo  otro  que  a  cabsa  de  este  secreto  mas  facilmente  se  pueden  librar 
los  que  han  cometido  el  dehcto  de  que  son  acusados,  por  que  el  que 
lo  hizo  bien  sabe  quando  y  como  y  ante  quien,  y  luego  pueden  acertar 
en  quien  lo  acusa,  y  tachandolo  como  se  hace  es  dado  por  libre,  y  la 
sentencia  es  justa,  y  el  culpado  queda  sin  castigo.  Lo  qual  es  por  el 
contrario  a  quel  que  falsamente  se  le  acusa,  que  como  no  lo  hizo  ni  sabe 
ni  puede  saber  de  donde  le  viene  el  dano,  sino  fuere  por  inspiracion 
divina,  de  la  qual  gracia  no  son  dignas  todas,  pe  .  .  .  y  de  esta 
manera  pasan  mucho  mas  riesgo  y  peligro  .  .  .  que  son  buenos  y 
catolicos  cristianos  que  los  que  .  .  .  y  biben  mal,  en  lo  qual  de 
Vuestra  Magestad  .  .  .  poner  este  tan  justo  remedio  que  se  le 
.  .  .  tiene  puesto  de  su  mano  para  la  gobernacion  .  .  .  y 
senorios,  por  que  los  buenos  puedan  biber  ...  ser  malos  sean 
conocidos  y  castigados.^ 

^  The  end  of  the  document  is  torn. 


DOCUMENTS  587 


X. 

Bull  of  Sixtus  IV,  April  18,  1482,  Temporarily  Reforming  the 

Inquisition  of  Aragon. 

(See  p.  234). 

(Archivio  Vaticano,  Sisto  IV,  Regesto  674,  T.  XV,  fol.  366). 

Sixtus  Episcopus  servus  servorum  Dei  Ad  perpetuam  rei  memoriam. 
Gregis  Dominici  nostras  custodise  divina  disponente  dementia  com- 
missi vigilem  et  solicitam  curam  gerentes,  Pastoris  inhaerendo  vestigiis 
libenter  juxta  officii  nostri  debitum  nostras  solicitudinis  partes  adhibe- 
mus  ut  errantes,  relicto  praecipiti  tenebrarum  devio,  viam  veritatis 
agnoscant,  et  per  illam  gradientes  vitam  consequantur  aeternam ;  per- 
severantes  vero  in  eorum  erroribus  proditis  contra  eos  a  jure  remediis 
compescantur,  nee  damnentur  aliqui  de  quorum  erroribus  legitimis 
probationibus  non  constaret.  Sane  nuper  nobis  insinuatum  extitit 
quod  in  Aragoniae  et  Valentiae  ac  Maioricarum  Regnis,  necnon  Princi- 
patu  Cataloniae  officium  inquisicionis  haereticae  pravitatis  non  zelo 
fidei  et  salutis  animarum  sed  lucri  cupiditate  ab  aliquo  tempore  citra 
exercetur  et  quamplurimi  veri  et  fideles  Christiani  illo  mediante, 
admissis  contra  eos  inimicorum,  aemulorum,  servorum  aliarumque 
vilium  et  minus  ydonearum  personarum,  probationibus  nullis  legitimis 
praecedentibus  indicibus,  carceribus  etiam  saecularium  judicum  detru- 
dentur,  torquentur,  haeretici  etiam  et  relapsi  declarantur,  bonis  et 
beneficiis  spoliantvir  et  traduntur  curiae  saeculari  et  per  illam  ultimo 
supplicio  afficiuntur  in  animarum  periculum,  perniciosum  exemplum 
et  scandalum  plurimorum.  Nos  igitur  multorum  quaerelis  super  hoc 
excitati,  providere  volentes  ut  tenemur  quod  officium  ipsum  debite 
peragatur  et  illo  mediante  nullus  opprimatur  indebite  et  injuste, 
Motu  proprio,  non  ad  alicujus  nobis  super  hoc  oblatae  petitionis 
instantiam,  sed  de  nostra  mera  deliberatione  et  ex  certa  nostra  scientia, 
auctoritate  apostolica,  praesentium  tenore  statuimus  quod  de  cajtero 
in  Regnis  et  Principatu  praedictis  locorum  Ordinarii  sen  eorum  vicarii 
et  officiales  ac  ejusdem  haereticae  pravitatis  inquisitores  in  eorum 
civitatibus  et  dioecesibus  deputati  conjunctim  dumtaxat  juxta  tenorem 
aliarum  litterarum  nostrarum  contra  Christianos  Judaicae  supersti- 
tionis  sectatores  et  ad  illorum  ritus  transeuntes  illosque  Judaizando 
sectantes  ac  alios  haereticos  quoscunque  eorumque  receptatores  et 
fautores  etiam  super  jam  coeptis  negotiis  procedere  et  accusatorum  et 
denuntiatorum  et  promo ventium  hujusmodi  inquisitionis  negotium, 
necnon  testium  quos  desuper  ad  juramenta  et  dicta  recipi  continget, 
nomina  et  attestationes  ac  dicta  totumque  eorum  processum  personis 
ipsis  ac  earum  procuratoribus  et  defensoribus  publicare  et  aperire  ac 


588 


APPENDIX 


€is  ad  opponendum  contra  eosdem  testes  eorumque  dicta  et  attesta- 
tiones  et  processuum  hujusmodi  competentem  dilationem  inspectis 
testium  numero  et  actorum  qualitate  moderandam  assignare,  et 
illis  contra  quos  procedi  continget  eos  quos  petierint  in  advocatos 
et  procuratores  dare  et  per  ipsas  personas  inquisitas  ac  eorum  nomine 
comparentes  oppositas  in  termino  hujusmodi  legitimas  exceptiones  et 
defensiones  ac  desuper  legitimas  probationes  admittere.  Ipsique 
insimul  vel  alter  eorum  ad  minus  per  seipsos  secundum  juris  dispo- 
sitionem  testes  ad  juramenta  recipere  et  examinare  debeant  et  aliter 
receptorum  et  examinatorum  attestationes,  nullum  penitus  etiam 
judicium  vel  adminiculum  faciant  in  prsemissis,  nee  detineantur  per- 
sons aliquse  occasione  negotii  inquisitionis  hujusmodi  in  aho  quam 
solito  Ordinariorum  locorum  carcere,  ad  hoc  etiam  de  jure  deputato. 
Et  si  contingat  a  gravaminibus  eis  illatis  ad  Sedem  Apostolicam 
appellari,  Ordinarii,  vicarii  et  officiales  et  inquisitores  prsefati  appella- 
tionibus  ipsis  deferant  venerenter  dum  tamen  manifeste  frivolse  non 
fuerint,  et  processus  per  eos  habitos  ad  ejusdem  Sedis  examen  remittere 
et  in  illis  supersedere  nullatenus  differant,  usquequo  aliud  ab  eadem 
Sede  habuerint  in  mandatis.  Contrafacientes  vero  Ordinarii,  vicarii 
et  Officiales  ac  Inquisitores  prsefati  et  quicunque  alii  tam  ecclesiastici 
quam  sseculares  cujuscunque  status,  gradus,  ordinis  et  conditionis 
fuerint,  quacunque  ecclesiastica  vel  mundana  dignitate  prsefulgentes 
et  contrafieri  procurantes  consulentes  vel  suadentes,  tacite  vel  expresse, 
directe  vel  indirecte,  in  prsemissis  per  nos  sicut  prsefertur  provide 
statutis  vel  aliquo  eorumdem,  Episcopi  et  superiores  interdicti  ingressus 
ecclesise,  reliqui  vero  excommunicationis  sententiam  eo  ipso  incurrant, 
a  qua  prseterquam  in  mortis  articulo  constituti  ab  alio  quam  Romano 
Pontifice,  etiam  vigore  cujuscunque  facultatis  de  prsesentibus  men- 
tionem  non  facientis,  nequeant  absolutionis  beneficium  obtinere.  Et 
illius  exemplo  cujus  vices  gerimus  in  terris  nolentes  mortem  peccan- 
tium  sed  cupientes  potius  conversionem  eorum  salutiferam,  misereri 
potius  quam  ulcisci  elegimus,  prsesertim  ubi  si  alias  procedatur  exinde 
possint  verisimiliter  scandala  exoriri,  Ordinariis  locorum  et  eorum 
vicariis  et  Officialibus  generalibus  ac  Inquisitoribus  prsefatis  et 
cuilibet  eorum  in  omnibus  Regnis,  Principatu  et  dominiis  supradictis 
ut  quorumcunque  Regnorum  et  Principatus  prsedictorum  incolarum 
utriusque  sexus  ad  aliquem  ex  eis  recurrentium  confessione  diligenter 
audita  pro  quibuscunque  excessibus  criminibus  et  peccatis  etiam  quse 
vitam  et  ritus  ac  mores  Judaicos  sectando  aut  alias  a  via  veritatis  et 
fide  Catholica  deviando,  et  in  aliquem  haeresim  labendo  usque  in  diem 
illam  in  qua  confitebuntur  commississe  fatebuntur  et  censuras  eccle-- 
siasticas  quas  quomodolibet  incurrissent  auctoritate  nostra  in  utroque 
foro  poenitentiali  et  contentioso  absque  abjuratione  de  absolutionis 
beneficio  eisdem  recurrentibus  providendi  eisque  poenitentiam  salu- 
tarem  et  occultam  injungendi  motu,  scientia  et  auctoritate  praedictis 


DOCUMENTS  589 

facultatem  et  potestatem  concedimus  per  praesentes.  Ita  quod  in 
posterum  praetextu  criminis  haeresis  quam  antea  incurrisse  dicerentur 
contra  eos  inquirere  non  possint  nee  eos  nullatenus  valeant  molestari, 
dum  tamen  ad  Inquisitionis  processum  super  hujusmodi  criminibus 
et  inquisitorum  personalem  citationem  executorii  demandatam  deven- 
tum  non  foret,  ac  Ordinariis,  vicariis,  Officialibus  et  Inquisitoribus 
prsedictis  ne  contra  illos  quos  eorumdem  vel  alicujus  eorum  assertione 
eis  constiterit  per  aliquem  ex  eisdem  vigore  praesentium  absolutos 
fuisse  per  ipsorum  absolventium  attestationem  aut  patentes  literas, 
seu  super  eorum  assertione  confectum  instrumentum,  absque  tamen 
ulla  peccatorum  quorum  confessionem  audivissent  propalatione  de 
commissis  per  eosdem  confitentes  criminibus  haeresis  cujuslibet,  de 
novo  procedere,  aut  confiteri  modo  praedicto  volentes  quominus  id 
faciant  impedire,  nullatenus  praesumant  sub  simili  interdicti  et  ex- 
communicationis  sententia  eo  ipso  ut  praefertur  incurrenda  a  qua  pari 
modo  nequeant  ab  alio  quam  Sede  praedicta  nisi  in  mortis  articulo 
constituti  absolutionis  beneficium  obtinere,  eisdem  motu  scientia  et 
auctoritate  inhibemus.  Eisdemque  Ordinariis,  Vicariis,  Officialibus 
et  Inquisitoribus  sic  absolventibus  ac  cuilibet  eorum,  motu,  scientia 
et  auctoritate  prsedictis,  sub  simili  poena  mandamus  quatinus  per  se 
vel  alium  seu  alios  praesentes  litteras  ubi  quando  et  quociens  expedire 
cognoverint  solemniter  publicantes  et  illis  quibus  de  absolutionis 
beneficio  hujusmodi  providerint  ac  alios,  quos  contra  praesentium 
tenorem  gravari  quomodolibet  constiterit  efficaci  defensionis  praesidio 
assistentes  non  permittant  quempiam  contra  eorumdem  praesentium 
literarum  tenorem  vexari  seu  quomodoUbet  molestari,  et  illos  quos 
eis  interdicti  et  excommunicationis  sententiam  hujusmodi  incurrisse 
constiterit,  illos  irretitos  esse  publice  nuncient  faciantque  ab  aliis 
nunciari  et  ab  omnibus  arctius  evitari  ac,  legitimis  super  hiis  habendis 
servatis  processibus,  illos  iteratis  vicibus  aggravare  procurent.  Et 
insuper,  motu  et  scientia  similibus,  Ordinariis  eorumque  vicariis  et 
Officialibus  ac  Inquisitoribus  prsedictis,  sub  censuris  et  poenis  praefatis 
eo  ipso  incurrendis,  mandamus  quatinus  incolas  utriusque  sexus 
Regnorum  et  Principatus  praedictorum  qui  ad  eos  aut  eorum  quem- 
libet  pro  confessione  et  absolutione  praedictis  recurrerint  absque 
aliqua  dilatione  seu  mora  eorum  confessiones  et  cujuslibet  eorum 
audiant  et  eis  de  absolutionis  beneficio  in  utroque  foro  ut  prsefertur 
provideant,  contradictores  per  censuram  ecclesiasticam  appellatione 
postposita  compescendo,  invocando  ad  hoc  si  opus  fuerit  auxilio  brachii 
saecularis,  decernentes  ex  nunc  omnes  et  singulos  processus  quos 
haberi  et  generaliter  quicquid  fieri  vel  attemptari  contigerit  contra 
prsesentium  tenorem  quomodolibet  nullius  esse  roboris  vel  momenti 
et  haberi  debere  prorsus  pro  infectis.  Non  obstantibus  apostolicis  in 
provincialibus  et  sinodalibus  conciliis  editis  constitutionibus  et  ordina- 
tionibus  ac  privilegiis  et  litteris  dictae  Sedis,  necnon  ecclesiarum  Reg- 


590  APPENDIX 

norum  et  Principatus  prsedictorum  ac  curiarum  eommdem  juramento 
confirmatione  apostolica  vel  quavis  alia  firmitate  roboratis,  statutis  et 
consuetudinibus  ac  stilo  et  observantiis  quibus  ilia  etiamsi  de  eis 
eorumque  toto  tenore  seu  quovis  alio  expressio  habenda  esset,  praesen- 
tibus  pro  expressis  habentes,  illis  alias  in  suo  robore  permansuris, 
quoad  praemissa  specialiter  expresse  derogamus  contrariis  quibus- 
cunque.  Seu  si  aliquibus  communiter  vel  divisim  a  Sede  prsefata  indul- 
tum  existat  aut  interdici  suspendi  vel  excommunicari  non  possint  per 
litteras  Apostolicas  non  facientes  plenam  et  expressam  ac  de  verbo  ad 
verbum  de  indulto  hujusmodi  mentionem,  et  qualibet  alia  dictse  Sedis 
indulgentia  generali  vel  speciali  cujuscunque  tenoris  existat,  per  quam 
prgesentibus  non  expressam  vel  totaliter  non  insertam  effectus  earum 
impediri  valeat  quomodolibet  vel  differri,  et  de  qua  cujusque  toto 
tenore  habenda  sit  in  nostris  litteris  mentio  specialis.  Et  quia  difficile 
foret  praesentes  litteras  ad  singula  loca  deferri,  volumus  et  apostolica 
auctoritate  decernimus  quod  transumpto  prsesentium  manu  alicujus 
notarii  publici  subscripto  et  sigillo  alicujus  curiae  episcopalis  muni  to 
ubique  in  judicio  et  extra  tanta  fides  adhibeatur  quanta  ipsis  original- 
ibus  litteris  adhiberetur  si  illse  exhibitse  vel  ostensae  forent.  Nulli  ergo 
etc.  liceat  banc  paginam  nostrorum  statuti,  concessionis,  inhibitionis, 
mandati,  constitutionis,  derogationis,  decreti  et  voluntatis  infringere 
vel  ei  ausu  temerario  contraire.  Si  quis  autem  etc.  Datum  Romae 
apud  Sanctum  Petrum,  Anno  Incarnationis  Dominicae  Millesimo  Quad- 
ringesimo  octuagesimo  secundo,  Quarto  decimo  Kal.  Mali,  Pontificatus 
Nostri  Anno  Undecimo. 

P.  Bertrandi.  D.  de  Viterbio. 

Duplicata  sub  eadem  data  et  scripta  per  eundem  scriptorem  et 
taxata  ad  xxx. 


XI. 

King  Ferdinand  to  Pope  Sixtus  IV,  May  13,  1482. 

(Archivo  General  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Reg.  3684,  fol.  7), 

(See  p.  235). 

Sanctissime  Pater:  Ferdinandus  etc.  Aliqua  fuerunt  mihi  relata, 
pater  sancte,  que  si  vera  sunt  maxima  admiratione  digna  videntur: 
hec  sunt  quod  sanctitas  vestra  concessit  generalem  remissionem  neo- 
phytis  de  omnibus  erroribus  seu  delictis  per  eos  ante  hac  perpetratis 
provideritque  ut  nomina  testium  qui  apud  acta  inquisitionum  heretice 
pravitatis  que  nunc  fiunt  in  provincia  Aragonie  testimonia  perhibue- 
runt  delatis  revelentur  et  quod  a  sententia  inquisitionis  possit  ad 


DOCUMENTS  59I 

vestram  sanctitatem  appelari  seu  apostolicam  sedem  et  etiam  quod 
sanctitas  vestra  revocaverit  ab  ipsius  inquisitionis  officio  scilicet 
Joanni  Christoforo  de  Gualbis  et  fratrem  Joannem  Ort  exaudiendo 
eorum  neophitorum  peticiones  quibus  etiam  audientia  deneganda  est, 
postquam  inquisitores  ipsi  modeste  et  decenter  prosequuntur,  aliter 
enim  spectantes  alios  favorabiles  et  faciles  sibi  optinere  inquisitores, 
et  alia  a  S.  V.  impetrata  indulta  talem  suscipiunt  audaciam  quod  non 
timent  in  eorum  erroribus  persistere.  Predicte  autem  relationi  impen- 
dimus  fidem  nullam,  quod  talia  visa  simt  quod  nuUatenus  concedenda 
erant  per  S.  V.  que  hujusmodi  sancte  inquisitionis  negotium  dirigere 
debet.  Et  si  per  dictorum  neophitorum  importunas  et  astutas  per- 
suasiones  ea  concessa  forsitan  fuerint  eis  nunquam  locum  dare  intendo. 
Caveat  igitur  S.  V.  contra  dicti  negotii  prosequtionem  quicquid  impedi- 
menta concedere  et  si  quid  concessum  fuerit  revocare  et  de  nobis 
ipsius  negotii  cura  confidere  non  dubitare.  Sed  postquam  S.  V.  aperte 
novit  quantum  cedit  imo  preter  astutisimas  neophitorum  circuitiones 
opus  est  in  Dei  servitium  et  cristiane  fidei  decus  quod  inquisitores 
heretice  pravitatis  secundum  beneplacitum  et  voluntatem  meam  in 
his  regnis  et  terris  meis  instituantur  et  regio  meo  favore  freti  onus 
inquisitionis  exerceant  et  hoc  quidem  modo  ea  que  agenda  sint  perfici 
possunt  et  aliter  nihil  bene  ageretur  circa  ea  quod  facile  quidem  intel- 
legi  potest  ex  hoc  quam  superioribus  temporibus  dum  de  ejusmodi 
negotiis  ego  aut  predecessores  mei  non  nos  intromittimus  heretica 
pravitas  in  tantum  succurruit  et  ejusmodi  morbi  contagio  per  cris- 
tianum  gregem  se  extendit  quod  quamplurimi  qvii  pro  cristianis  habe- 
bantur  non  modo  non  cristiane  sed  neque  secundum  legem  aliquam 
vivere  reperti  sunt  et  multa  que  ab  iUis  in  Cristi  neglectum  et  vilipen- 
dium  fiebant  aperta  sunt  et  in  dies  efundentur  in  pubUcum  que  ita 
proh  dolor  eveniunt  culpa  atque  nequitia  inquisitorum  preteritorum 
qui  munibus  et  corruptehs  ab  inquisitionibus  desistebant  aut  eas 
minus  bene  prosequebantur.  Dignetur  iccirco  eadem  S.  V.  hie  mihi 
concedere  circa  inquisitiones  predictas  videlicet  quod  sanctitas  vestra 
quamprimum  confirmet  predictos  fratrem  Joannem  Cristoforum  de 
Gualbes  et  fratrem  Joannem  Orts  in  dicto  inquisitionis  officio  con- 
firmetque  eadem  S.  V.  comisionem  ad  meam  instantiam  nuper  factam 
per  magistratus  ordinis  fratrum  predicatorum  fratri  Gaspari  Jutglar 
conventus  illerdensis  super  instituendis  et  destituendis  inquisitoribus 
in  dicta  provincia  secundum  beneplacitum  et  voluntatem  meam. 
Aut  si  melius  videbitur  S.  V.  alicui  alteri  fratri  similem  comisionem 
faciat  ut  semper  inquisitores  nobis  acceptos  in  dicta  provincia  habea- 
mus,  quoniam  alios  contra  voluntatem  nostram  hujusmodi  officium 
exercere  nunquam  permitere  intendimus.  Ita  cum  hec  omnia  fieri 
expedit  pater  sancte  in  obsequium  Cristi  et  catholice  fidei  decus  jubeat 
ergo  Sanctitas  vestra  apostoHcas  provisiones  et  literas  super  predicta 
iUco  expediri  quod  erit  mihi  vehementer  gratum  accipiamque  singu- 


592 


APPENDIX 


laris  beneficii  loco  ab  eadem  Sanctitate  vestra  cujus  almam  personam 
Jesus  optimus  maximus  feliciter  et  cum  sacre  Eclesie  columna  tueatur. 
Ex  Corduba  urbe  xiii  die  maii  a  nativitate  Domini  mcccclxxxii.  De 
vuestra  santidat  muy  omil  e  devoto  fijo  que  vuestros  santos  pies  y 
manos  besa  el  Rey  de  Castilla  y  de  Aragon.    Camanyus  secretarius. 


XII. 

Memoria  de  diversos  Autos  de  Inquisicion  celebrados  en  ^ara- 

G05A  desde  el  ano  1484  asta  el  de  1502  en  que  se  refieren 

las  personas  castigadas  en  ellos/ 

(See  p.  244). 

Los  serenisimos  Reyes  catholicos  don  fernando  y  dona  Isavel  man- 
daron  poner  en  ^aragoga  el  sacrosanto  tribunal  de  la  fe  en  el  ano  de 
1484.    Lo  mismo  en  Catalonia  y  Valencia. 

Fue  el  primero  Inquisidor  Apostolico  El  Maestro  Julian  de  la  orden 
de  Predicadores  al  qual  se  entiende  que  mataron  los  Judios  atossi- 
gandole  en  unas  rosquillas  que  le  presentaron.  El  Glorioso  Maestro 
Pedro  Arbues  de  Epila  llamado  vulgarmente  el  Maestre  Epila,  fue 
muerto  por  los  conversos  estando  en  los  maytines  de  media  noche  en 
la  seo  de  ^'aragoga,  de  donde  era  canonigo  a  17  de  T^""®  de  1485. 

*  This  MS.  I  procured  from  a  bookseller  in  Madrid,  and  I  know  nothing  of  its 
provenance.  It  is  in  small  quarto,  with  62  unnumbered  pages  of  a  handwriting 
which  I  should  attribute  to  the  seventeenth  or  eariy  eighteenth  century;  about 
three  pages  towards  the  middle  are  in  a  different  hand,  with  some  blanks  filled 
in  by  the  scribe  of  the  rest  of  the  MS.,  as  though  the  copying  had  been  entrusted 
to  a  second  writer  who  had  proved  unable  to  decypher  the  original.  The  record 
bears  on  its  face  every  mark  of  authenticity.  There  are  occasional  discrepancies 
in  names  and  dates  between  it  and  the  list  at  the  end  of  the  Libro  Verde,  but  in 
general  they  correspond,  as  it  also  does  with  such  trials  of  the  period  as  I  have  ex 
amined  from  the  Llorente  MSS.  in  the  BibHotheque  Nationale.  It  supplies  much 
that  is  lacking,  and  the  abstracts  of  the  sentences  of  the  murderers  of  San  Pedro 
Arbues  are  sufficient  to  render  it  a  document  of  interest,  besides  the  light  which 
the  sentences  in  general  throw  upon  the  business  of  the  Inquisition.  I  tran- 
scribe in  full  the  earlier  portion,  with  the  final  "Resumen."  Of  the  remainder, 
which  consists  of  little  more  than  lists  of  names  of  convicts  and  penitents,  I 
only  give  a  summary. 

The  MS.  has  much  in  common  with  the  anonymous  Origen  de  la  Inquisicion 
cited  by  Llorente  (Anales,  I,  76,  94,  114,  etc.)  which  he  says  is  in  the  Academia 
de  la  Historia  and  was  written  in  1652. 


DOCUMENTS  593 

AUTOS    DE    FE    DEL   ANO    1484. 

Auto  primero.  A  10  de  Mayo  de  1484,  domingo,  se  hizo  auto  de  fe  en 

1484.  la  seo   de  ^aragoga.     Predico   el   Inquisidor  el  Maestro 
Julian  y  fueron  sacados  en  el  los  siguientes. 

1.  Primero,  Leonora  Eli  por  ceremonias  Judaycas,  y  quando 

oya  nonibrar  del  SS.°^°  nombre  de  Jesus  respondia,  called 
no  le  nombreys  que  es  nombre  de  enforcado. 

2.  Felipe   Salvador   alias   Santicos   botiguero   por   ceremonias 

Judaycas,  comer  carne  en  viernes,  y  en  la  quaresma,  este 
fue  primo  hermano  de  Pedro  de  la  Cabra  Judio. 

3.  Leonor  Catorce  Valenciana,  muger  del  dicho  Santicos,  por 

ceremonias  Judaycas,  comer  Amin^  y  carne  en  viernes  y 
savado  y  aver  ayunado  el  ayuno  de  Quipur. 

4.  Isavel   Munoz   Castellana,    por   los   mismos   delitos   y   que 

quando  dezia  el  credo,  y  llegava  a  aquellas  palabras  et  in 

Jesum  Christum,  dezia  Aqui  cayo  el  asno. 

Todos  estos  fueron  penitenciados  por  hereges  y  confiscadas 

sus  haziendas. 

Auto  2.  A  3  de  Junio,  en  el  patio  de  la  casa  del  Arzobispo,  predico  el 

Santo  martyr  Pedro  Arbues,  fueron  condenados  a  muerte, 

1,  2.  Dos  hombres  por  hereges  Judayzantes,  el  uno  dellos  fue 

aogado  porque  murio  reducido. 
3.  Aldonza  de  Perpifian,  muger  de  Manuel  de  Almazan,  por 
ceremonias  de  Judios,  y  aver  bestido  a  doze  pobres  Judios 
en  honor  de  las  doze  tribus  de  Israel,  algunos  afios,  Ayunar 
el  Quipur  y  dar  limosna  a  la  cedaza,  quemaronla  en 
estatua  por  ser  difunta. 
Auto  3.  A  20  de  Diziembre,  Biernes,  A  las  espaldas  del  hospital  de 

1485.  nuestra  senora  del  Portillo.      Predico  el  Prior  de  Predica- 
dores,  fueron  quemados 

1.  Alvaro  de  Segovia  por  ceremonias  Judaycas,  comer  Amin  y 

carnes  degolladas  en  sus  ritos,  y  en  quaresma,  Ayunar  el 
Quipur,  leer  la  Biblia  en  hebreo  bajo  de  un  pabellon,  y 
despues  la  hazia  adorar  a  sus  hijos — quemado. 

2.  Joana  Sinfa  porque  de  Judia  hecha  Cristiana  volvio  a  los 

ritos  Judaycos  y  vivia  como  Judia, — quemada. 
Auto  4.  A  treze  de  febrero.    En  la  seo.    Predico  el  Maestro  Crespo  y 

1486.  sacaron  en  el  tablado  a 

1.  Jayme  la  Gasca  con  una  bela  ardiendo  en  las  manos  por 
ceremonias  Judaycas.  No  le  confiscaron  los  bienes  por 
aver  confessado  dentro  del  tiempo. 

*  Amin  was  a  kind  of  Jewish  broth.  In  the  trial  of  Juan  de  la  Caballeria,  in 
1488,  there  is  an  allusion  to  "hamin  y  otras  potages  de  Judios." — MSS.  Bib.  Nat. 
de  Paris,  fonds  espagnol,  81. 

38 


594 


APPENDIX 


Auto  5.  A  24  de  febrero,  Biernes,  en  nuestra   sefiora  del   Portillo. 
1486.       Predico  el  Maestro  Crespo,  canonigo  del  Pilar.     Sacaron 
en  el  a 

1.  Salvador  Esperandeu  el  vie  jo  zurrador,  porque  siendo  Cris- 

tiano  hizo  ceremonias  Judaycas,  comio  Amin,y  Pan  cotazo/ 
y  carne  en  la  quaresma,  guardava  el  savado,  y  travajava 
el  domingo,  ayunava  el  Quipur,  y  escarnecia  al  querpo  de 
nuestro  sefior  Jesu  Cristo — fue  quemado. 

2.  Gumien  Berguero,  siendo  cristiano  hizo  todas  las  ceremonias 

de  Judios  y  llevava  abito  de  Rabi,  fue  quemado. 

3.  Ysavel    de   embon,   muger   de    Gilabert   Desplugas,   siendo 

eristiana  dava  azeyte  a  la  sinagoga,  y  hazia  ceremonias 
Judaycas — fue  quemada. 

4.  Dionis  Ginot,   notario,   por   casado   dos  veces  viviendo  la 

primera  muger,  y  fugitivo — quemado  en  estatua. 

5.  Pedro  Navarro  mercader,  por  ceremonias  Judaycas  y  escar- 

necer  el  santisimo  sacramento,  y  fugitivo — quemado  en 
estatua. 

6.  Maestro  Martinez,  jurista  de  Teruel  por  ceremonias  Judaycas 

y  aver  quebrantado  su   carcel   y  huydose — quemado  en 
estatua. 
Auto  6.  A  17  de  Julio  [Marzo]  Biernes,  en  nuestra  senora  del  Portillo, 
1486.       Predico  el  Maestro  Crespo,  y  sacaron  al  tablada  a 

1.  Francisco    Clemente    notario    por    ceremonias    Judaycas, 

quemado. 

2.  A  su  muger  por  lo  mismo,  quemada. 

3.  Miguel    de    Oliban   gapatero    por   ceremonias   y   manjares 

Judaycos,  y  porque  dezia  que  el  buen  Judio  se  podia  salvar 
en  su  ley  como  el  buen  cristiano  en  la  suya,  y  que  la  de 
Moysen  era  buena,  y  que  nunca  avia  creydo  en  la  S.°^* 
Trinidad  ni  en  la  Virgen  nuestra  senora  Maria  S.™*,  fue 
quemado. 
Auto  7.  Biernes  a  28  de  Abril,  en  el  mismo  lugar.  Predico  el  Maestro 
1486.       Crespo.     Fueron  castigados  los  que  se  siguien. 

1.  Pedro   de   Orrea,   mercader,   por   ceremonias   Judaycas,   y 

averse  hecho  circuncidar  y  quando  beja  la  cruz  o  el  SS.™** 
Sacr.*^"  se  escondia  por  no  benerarlos — fue  quemado. 

2.  Anton  de    Pomar  Berguero,  por  ceremonias   Judaycas,  y 

siendo  cristiano  no  savia  el  Paternoster  ni  el  credo — fue 
quemado. 

3.  Francisco  Tornabal  pelayre  por  Relapso,  y  casado  con  dos 

mugeres  veladas — quemado. 


*  Unleavened  bread — "panem  azmum  sive  cotaco  comedendo" — Trial  of  Bea- 
trix de  la  Cavallerfa,  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.  de  France,  fonds  espagnol,  80,  fol.  175. 


DOCUMENTS  595 

4.  Maestro   Puremiofer  [Pedro   Monfort],   Vicario   general   de 

^aragoga,  por  aver  venido  contra  la  Inquisicion  en  Mal- 
lorca  y  ^aragoga  y  dezir  que  el  buen  Judio  se  podia  salbar 
como  el  buen  cristiano,  y  entre  los  Judios  jurava  por  la  ley 
de  Moysen  y  por  los  diez  mandamientos,  y  dezirles  que 
tenian  buena  y  santa  ley — quemado  en  estatua. 

5.  Mossen  Pedro  Maiios  eavallero,  que  siendo  cristiano  se  paso 

a  las  ceremonias  Judaycas — quemado  en  estatua. 

6.  Manuel  de  Almazan  mercader,  por  ceremonias  Judaycas, 

comer  Amin  y  Arrequequer  y  dar  limosna  a  la  cedaza  y 
pagar  a  un  Rabi  porque  le  fuesse  a  leer  la  ley  de  Moysen — 
fue  quemado. 
Auto  8.  Domingo  de  la  S"^*  Trinidad  a  21  de  Mayo,  dentro  de  la  seo. 
1486.       Predico  el  Maestro  Martin  Garcia  Inquisidor,  sacaron  a 

1.  Joan  Cid,  sastre  por  ceremonias  Judaycas,  fue  penitenciado 

y  confiscados  los  bienes. 

2.  Rodrigo  Gris,   carnicero,   que  siendo    cristiano  hazia  cere- 

monias de  Judios,  y  el  Jueves  S*°  se  harto  de  Gazapos. 

3.  Jayme  Redo,  comia  carnes  en  biernes  S"^. 

4.  Joan  de  Alcala,  portero  del  Justicia  de  Aragon,  por  cere- 

monias Judaycas,  y  comer  came  en  quaresma,  caso  dos 
veces  en  vida  de  la  primera  muger. 

5.  Gilabert  Desplugas,  por  ceremonias  Judaycas. 

6.  Jayme  de  Caseda,  corredor,  por  lo  mismo. 

7.  Anton  Matheo,  Botiguero,  por  comer  carne  en  quaresma  y 

gallinas  en  Viernes  S*°  y  darles  la  bendicion  a  sus  hijos 
passandoles  la  mano  por  la  cara. 
Todos  estos  fueron  penitenciados. 
Auto  9.  A  25  de  Junio  Biernes  en  la  seo.     Predico  el  Maestro  Martin 
1486.       Garcia,  fueron  penitenciados  por  hereges  los  siguientes. 

1.  Jayme    Navarro    mercader,    por   ayunos   y   ceremonias   de 

Judios,  yr  a  la  sinagoga  a  orar,  dezir  que  si  Cristo  n.  S'. 
fuera  dios  no  temiera  el  morir. 

2.  Felipe  de  Moros,  mesonero  de  la  Almunia,  porque  se  caso 

con  dos  mugeres  vivas,  ceremonias  de  Judios,  y  aver 
llevado  a  ganar  torpemente  una  muger  cristiana. 

3.  Clara  Mateo,  muger  de  Alvaro  de  Segovia,  por  ceremonias 

Judaycas  y  dezir  que  no  estava  nuestro  Salvador  en  la 
ostia,  y  que  no  dezia  verdad  en  la  confession  porque  creya 
que  todo  era  burla  sino  la  ley  de  Moysen. 

4.  Leonor  Romeo  muger  de  Anton  Mateo,  ceremonias  Juday- 

cas. 

5.  Joan  de  Aragon,  botiguero,   en  cuerpo   y  con  bela  en  el 

tablado,  por  que  tuvo  conbiados  a  unos  Judios,  y  dezia 
Cristianos  de  natura,  Cristianos  de  mala  ventura,  y  que 


596 


APPENDIX 


mas  valia  dar  h.  ganar  al  medico  Judio  que  al  Cristiano,  y 
por  sospechoso  en  la  fe. 
Auto  10.  A  30  do  Junio,  Biernes,  en  la  puerta  de  la  Seo,  predico  el 
1486.       Inquisidor  Abad  de  Aguilar,  fueron  condenados  a  muerte 

1.  Joan  de  Pero  Sanchez  mercader,  que  dijo  a  Joan  de  la  Badia 

que  si  matara  al  Inq"^  Maestro  Epila  le  daria  500  florines  de 
oro,  y  mas  dijo  a  Caspar  de  Santa  Cruz  y  a  Mateo  Ram 
en  casa  de  Juan  de  Esperandeu,  y  delante  dellos  encargo 
a  Vidau  frances  que  matasse  al  Inquisidor  que  el  se  lo 
pagaria  muy  bien,  porque  era  tesorero  del  dinero  que 
tenian  para  defenderse  los  Judios,  y  porque  Judayzava  y 
dezia  que  la  mejor  ley  era  la  de  Moysen,  y  que  maldijo  a 
su  padre  por  averse  tornado  cristiano.  Arastraron  su 
estatua  con  una  bolsa  al  cuello  por  parago9a  y  despues  la 
quemaron  en  el  mercado. 

2.  Joan  de  Esperandeu  Zurrador  por  assesino  de  la  misma 

muerte  y  porque  un  savado  fue  con  Vidal  frances  y  Mateo 
Ram  a  la  Reja  del  estudio  del  Maestre  Epila  para  arran- 
calla,  y  no  lo  executaron  porque  fueron  descubiertos,  y 
passados  4  o  cinco  meses  fueron  a  la  seo  a  Maytines  tras 
del  dicho  Inquisidor  y  allandole  arrodillado  entre  el  altar 
mayor  y  el  coro,  esperandeo,  durango  frances,  Ram  y 
Abadia,  dijo  este  al  Vidau,  dale  que  este  es,  y  el  Vidau  le 
dio  una  cuchillada  de  rebes,  que  le  abrio  desde  la  cerviz 
asta  la  barba,  y  esperandeu  le  dio  una  estocada  que  le 
paso  el  brazo  izquierdo,  este  era  fino  Judio  y  circuncidado, 
y  lo  arrastraron  vivo  y  delante  de  la  puerta  mayor  de  la 
seo  le  cortaron  los  dos  manos,  y  de  alii  le  Uebaron  arras- 
trando  al  mercado  y  en  la  horca  le  cortaron  la  cabeza  y 
le  hizieron  quartos  y  las  manos  las  enclavaron  en  la  puerta 
pequeiia  de  la  diputacion,  y  los  quartos  por  los  caminos. 

3.  Vidau  durango  frances  zurrador,  criado  de  Esperandeu  con- 

fesso  que  avia  ydo  muchas  vezes  a  casa  de  Caspar  de 
Santa  Cruz  y  de  Pero  Sanchez  y  como  ellos  y  Sancho  de 
Paternoy  trataban  la  muerte  del  Inquisidor,  y  como  le 
allaron  arrodillado  los  dichos  Vidau  y  Mateo  Ram,  esperan- 
deu y  la  badia  y  otros  que  el  no  conocio  porque  yvan  con 
mascaras,  y  que  el  dicho  Abadia  llamo  al  dicho  Vidau  y 
le  dijo  aparte,  cata  que  le  des  grande  golpe  en  la  cara,  o, 
en  el  cuello,  que  de  otra  manera  no  lo  mataras  porque 
lleva  cerbillera  y  Jaco  de  malla,  y  despues  que  el  dicho 
la  badia  se  lo  mostro  y  certifico  era  el  Inquisidor  el  que 
estava  arrodillado,  le  dio  Vidau  una  cuchillada  de  rebes 
que  le  derrivo  las  varillas,  y  le  cOrto  la  bena  organical  de  la 
cerviz,  y  de  este  golpe  murio,  y  por  esto  fue  Vidau  arrastrado 


DOCUMENTS  597 

por  la  ciudad  y  vuelto  a  la  plaza  de  la  seo  le  aogaron  y 
cortaron  las  manos,  y  esto  se  hizo  por  no  darle  tanta  pena 
como  al  otro,  porque  dijo  toda  la  verdad,  y  despues  de 
muerto  lo  arrastraron  asta  el  mercado  y  le  hizieron  alii 
quartos  que  los  pusieron  por  los  caminos  y  las  manos  en  la 
puerta  de  la  diputacion. 
Auto  11.  A  28  de  Julio,  Biernes  en  la  plaza  de  la  seo,  predico  el  Maestro 
1486.       Crespo,  fueron  condenados  al  fuego 

1.  Caspar  de  Santa  Cruz  porque  siendo   cristiano   comia  y 

ayunava  y  hazia  ceremonias  como  Judio,  y  porque  el  y 
Joan  de  Perosanchez  offrecieron  a  Juan  de  labadia  500 
florines  si  matava  al  santo  Inquisidor  y  que  ellos  le  favore- 
cerian,  y  como  se  alio  en  su  muerte  y  en  las  Juntas  donde 
le  fraguaron,  que  fueron  la  primera  en  el  temple,  la  2*^"^  en 
Santa  Engracia,  la  3*  en  el  portillo,  y  por  averse  huydo  a 
Tolosa  de  francia,  donde  murio,  le  quemaron  en  estatua, 
y  a  Ceronimo  de  Santa  Cruz  su  hijo  que  lo  acompano  a 
Tolosa  le  dieron  por  penitencia  que  llevasse  alia  el  processo 
o  sentencia  de  su  Padre  y  que  hiziesse  desenterrar  los 
huesos  y  los  quemasse  y  tragesse  relacion  dello  de  los  In- 
quisidores  de  Tolosa,  y  assi  lo  executo. 

2.  Martin  de  Santangel,  porque  siendo  cristiano  hazia  cere- 

monias de  Judios,  complice  en  la  dicha  muerte  del  santo 
Inquisidor,  aver  contribuydo  en  el  dinero  recogido  para 
ella,  traer  en  sus  horas  quatro  oraciones  en  hebreo  y 
aquellos  rezava,  quern aronle  en  estatua. 

3.  Violante  Salvador,  muger  de  Caspar  de  Santa  Cruz,  por 

ceremonias  Judaycas,  y  no  guardar  el  domingo.  Por  lo 
qual  dezian  sus  criados  que  mas  parecia  su  casa  de  Judios 
que  de  cristianos,  y  antes  de  yr  a  missa  comia,  y  ponia 
tozino  en  la  olla  de  los  mozos  y  no  en  la  suya  porque 
guardava  la  ley  de  Moysen,  quemaronla  en  estatua. 

4.  Carcia  lopez,  mercader,  que  siendo  cristiano  hizo  ceremonias 

Judaycas  y  dava  limosna  a  la  cedaza,  y  tenia  horas  y  Biblia 
en  Hebreo,  y  nunca  se  confesso  ni  comulgo,  y  no  creya  que 
en  la  ostia  consagrada  estava  dios,  y  tenia  una  mandragula 
en  su  cama  y  cada  dia  ponia  en  ella  cinco  sueldos  y  se  yva 
a  missa  y  quando  querian  alzar  la  ostia  se  salia  de  la 
yglesia,  y  entrava  en  su  camara  a  ver  la  mandragula  y 
allava  diez  sueldos  en  ella,  y  luego  la  adorava  en  el  culo 
cada  dia,  quemaronle  en  estatua. 

5.  Pedro  de  Exea  mercader,  siendo  cristiano  hizo  ceremonias 

Judaycas,  comio  Amin  y  Arruqueques  y  carne  en  dias  pro- 
hibidos,  yva  a  las  cabanas  de  judios  y  dava  limosna  por 
la  ley  de  Moysen,  y  avia  dado  dineros  a  su  muger  para  la 


For  ceremonias  Judaycas  y 
otros  graves  errores  en  la 
fe,  y  no  creer  en  muchos 
misterios  della. 


593  APPENDIX 

bolsa  contra  la  Inquisicion  para  efectuar  la  muerte  del 

santo  Inquisidor,  de  que  tuvo  mucho  placer,    quemaronle. 

6.  Violante  Ruys  muger  de  N.  de  Santa  Maria  siendo  cristiana 

hizo  ceremonias  de  Judios,  comia  carne  en  dias  prohibitos, 

nunca   se    santiguava    ni    arrodillava  al    alzar   la    ostia. 

quemaronla. 

Auto  12.  A  6  de  Agosto,  domingo,  predico  el  Maestro  Garcia  y  salieron 

1486.       penitenciados  por  hereges 

1.  Joan  de  Santa  Clara,  por  ceremonias  y  ayunos  de  Judios, 

volver  los  ojos  por  no  ver  alzar  en  missa,  y  quando  con- 
tratava  con  cristiano  de  naturaleza  lo  procurava  enganar, 
y  se  alegrava  y  dezia  a  otro  confesso,  Calle  que  estos 
cristianos  de  natura  decaen  poco  a  poco  les  daremos  su  ajo. 
Inviava  a  sus  hijos  a  la  Juderia  para  que  les  diessen  la 
bendicion,  y  tenia  una  mandragula  y  la  adorava  en  el  culo, 
y  dava  limosna  a  la  cedaza.     fue  penitenciado. 

2.  Diego  de  yta. 

3.  Clara  Belenguer  muger  de 

Joan  frances. 

4.  Gracia  Esplugas 

5.  Leonor   salillas   muger    de 

Pedro  Santa  Clara. 
Penitenciados. 

Auto  13.  A  24  de  setiembre  domingo  en  la  seo,  predico  el  Maestro 
1486.       Martin  Garcia,  y  salieron  por  hereges  con  corozas  los  siguien- 
tes. 

1.  Beatriz  lobera  por  ceremonias  Judaycas  y  dezir  que  los 

cristianos  eran  idolatras. 

2.  Violante  Velviure,  muger  de  M^  Gonzalo  de  Santa  Maria, 

ceremonias  Judaycas. 

3.  Isavel  Cruyllas,  muger  de  Pedro  de  Almazan,  ceremonias 

Judaycas,  y  porque  hizo  enbendar  a  un  hermano  suyo 
difunto  a  lo  Judayco,  y  a  un  hijo  enfermo  lo  hizo  passar 
tres  vezes  por  bajo  de  la  horca  tapiada  en  fe  de  que  sanaria, 
y  dezir  que  los  cristianos  de  natura  eran  cristianos  de  mala 
Ventura,  y  aver  comido  huevos  crudos  el  dia  de  la  muerte 
de  su  hermano,  ceremonia  de  Judios. 

4.  La  muger  deRedo,  hazia  parar  una  mesa  con  mantiles  en  la 

bodega,  diziendo  que  vendria  a  comer  en  ella  el  diablo  y 
que  le  daria  muchos  bienes  de  fortuna,  y  mandava  a  la 
criada  que  quando  cubriesse  la  mesa  no  dizesse  Jesus 
aunque  viesse  algo,  y  que  la  mataria  si  lo  nombrava,  y 
por  ceremonias  Judaycas. 

5.  Antona  Rodriguez,  por  dichas  ceremonias,  y  degollar  las 

aves  al  modo  Judayco,  y  echar  sobre  la  sangre  polbo,  y 
hazer  que  le  bendijesse  un  Judio  los  bestidos. 


DOCUMENTS  ggg 

6.  La  muger  del  bermejo,  no  sabia  el  credo  sino  asta  Patrem 

omnipotentem,  y  ceremonias  Judaycas. 

7.  Joan  de  Pueyo,  trasmudador  por  casado  dos  vezes. 

8.  Francisco  del  Royo,  ceremonias  Judaycas. 

9.  Miguel  de  Almazan,  por  no  aver  notificado  que  estava  cir- 

cuncidado  estuvo  con  cirio  al  pie  del  altar,    pareciasele  la 

faba  de  la  parte  alta  (?). 

10.  Maria  de  llano  testifico  que  vivian  como  Judios  luys  y  Joan 

de  Joan  Sanchez  y  su  muger,  y  el  luys  sanchez  tuvo  noticia 

dello  y  ofifrecio  a  dicha  Maria  muchas  vezes  que  si  yva  y 

dezia  a  los  Inquisidores  que  lo  que  avia  depuesto  contra 

eUos  era  con  maUcia  y  le  desdezia  la  casaria  y  le  daria 

para  un  manto,  y  de  lo  mismo  le  ablo  un  dia  m"^  Alonso 

Sanchez  en  el  carmen,  y  con  esto  la  hizieron  desdezir.    Pero 

despues  volvio  a  confessar  la  verdad,  confirmando  lo  que 

avia  testificado  contra  ellos  primero.     Por  lo  qual  estuvo 

en  la  grada  del  tablado  con  un  cirio. 

Auto  14.  A  21  de  Octubre  savado  en  la  plaza  de  la  seo,  predico  el 

1486.       Maestro  Martinez,  fueron  relajados  al  fuego  los  siguientes. 

1.  Bernad  de  Robas  mercader,  padre  de  Francisco  de  Robas, 

passo  a  las  ceremonias  de  judios,  y  los  Viernes  Santos  se 
ponia  un  capirote  de  Judio,  y  uno  de  estos  Viernes  el  y 
otros  confessos  comieron  gallinas  y  capones  en  cierta  casa, 
y  dezia,  Pues  estos  cristianos  de  mala  ventura  hazen  oy 
el  llanto,  hagamos  nosotros  el  canto,     quemaronle. 

2.  Galceran  Belenguer  velero,  se  passo  a  las  ceremonias  Juday- 

cas, trayajava  los  domingos,  y  decia  que  la  ley  de  Moysen 
era  mejor  que  la  de  Jesu  cristo,  y  un  dia  passando  unos 
frayles  de  la  Compania  de  Santa  Maria  de  Jesus,  dijo  como 
se  hallaran  burlados  estos,  pues  no  ay  otro  mundo  sino  este. 
quemaronle. 
3  Gabriel  de  Aojales  mercader,  dezia  ser  mejor  la  ley  de  Moy- 
sen que  la  de  los  cristianos,  y  un  dia  leyendo  en  presenciade 
otra  persona  la  BibHa  dijo,  mirad  si  es  mejor  creer  a  todos 
estos  profetas  que  no  a  lo  que  dizen  aquellos  doze  borrachos, 
entendendolo  por  los  doze  Apostoles  de  Cristo  n.  s.  passo  a 
las  ceremonias  Judaycas  y  le  quemaron. 

4.  Guillen  de  Bruysan  mercader,  hazia  las  mismas,  y  dezia  que 

qualquier  que  viniesse  contra  la  ley  de  Moysen  haria  mal 
fin,  y  que  ella  era  mejor  que  la  de  los  cristianos.  quema- 
ronle. 

5.  Gonzalo  de  Yta,  por  dichas  ceremonias  y  comio  en  la  Juderia 

y  muchos  vezes  con  su  Padre  que  era  Judio.     quemaronle. 

6.  Rodrigo  de  Gris  carnicero.  Padre  de  mossen  Gris,  fue  sacado 

primero   en  otro  auto   por  herege,  y  aviendole   peniten- 


600 


APPENDIX 


ciado  en  darle  por  carcel  una  casa  cave  san  felipe,  y  con 

penas  de  Relapso  se  fue  de  la  carcel  y  bolvio  a  cometer  los 

mismos  crimines,  y  en  este  auto  le  quemaron  en  estatua. 

7.  Maria  Labadia  muger  de  Martin  Salvador  panicero  comia 

carne  viernes  y  savados,  y  los  viernes  por  la  tarde  ponia 

manteles  limpios  en  la  mesa,  y  dos  lamparas  encendidas 

colgadas  en  una  querda  a  cada  punta  de  la  mesa,  y  los  otros 

dias  comia  en  mesa  diferente,  y  dezia  que  no  lo  queria  hazer 

delante  de  su  yerno  porque  era  cristiano  de  mala  ventura, 

y  que  la  ley  de  Moysen  era  mejor  que  la  nuestra  y  que  se 

avia  allado  y  venido  en  la  muerte  del  Inquisidor  W  Epila, 

y  por  ceremonias  Judaycas.     La  quemaron. 

Auto  15.  A  29  de  Noviembre  domingo,  en  la  plaza  de  la  seo,  predico 

1486 .       el  W  Martinez,  y  fueron  condenados  al  fuego  los  siguientes. 

1.  Pedro  de  Moros,  por  ceremonias  de  Judios  y  dezir  que  la 

ley  de  Moysen  era  la  mejor  de  todas,  y  que  el  Rey  que 
hazia  la  guerra  a  los  Moros  venia  contra  el  mandamiento 
de  dios. 

2.  Alvaro  de  Sevilla  carnicero,  el  dia  que  ayunava  el  aynno  de 

Quipur  abrazava  a  otro  confesso  por  ceremonia  de  Judios 
y  dezia  que  la  ley  de  Moysen  era  mejor  que  la  de  Cristo. 

3.  Cristo val  de  Gelba  comia  con  los  moros  de  sus  man j  ares  y 

conversava  con  ellos  y  dezia  que  era  Moro  y  que  le  llama- 
van  Alfans,  y  hazia  oracion  en  la  Mesquita  como  moro,  y 
ceremonias  Judaycas. 

4.  Joan  de  Vitoria  por  las  mismas  y  por  pedir  por  las  Juderias 

para  la  cedaza,  diziendo  que  era  Judio. 

5.  Catalina  Sanchez,  Madre  de  Mossen  Pedro  Bagues  por  dichas 

ceremonias  y  hazer  todas  las  cosas  de  los  Judios  y  observar 
sus  ritos. 

6.  Francisca  Daniel  muger  de  Jayme  Daniel  por  dichas  cere- 

monias y  enbiar  limosna  para  bendezir  las  fazes  de  sus  hijos 
al  Ravi  de  la  Juderia  y  les  hazia  llevar  antorchas  delante 
de  la  Tora. 

7.  Blanquina  Fernandez,  muger  de  Pedro  Fernandez  corredor, 

por  lo  mismo  que  Francisca  Daniel. 

8.  Blanca  de  Adam  alias  leonor  de  Montesa,  por  lo  mismo, 

9.  Maria  Rodriguez  passo  a  las  ceremonias  Judaycas,  fue  muger 

de  Joan  Rotoner  tinturero,  nunca  supo  el  credo,  hazia 
bendezir  sus  hijos  al  Ravi,  no  creya  que  en  la  ostia  consa- 
grada  estuviesse  dios,  y  quando  massava  hechava  peda- 
cillos  de  massa  en  el  fuego,  ceremonia  Judayca. 

10.  11.  Pedro  y  Luys  de  Almazan,  hijos  de  Manuel  de  Almazan 

porque  estavan  circuncidados  los  tenian  por  sospechosos  en 
la  fe,  y  assi  les  dieron  por  penitencia  que  mientras  se  dezia 


DOCUMENTS  601 

en  la  Yglesia  el  officio  assistiessen  con  sendas  belas,  y  los 

desterraron  de  ^'aragoga  por  diez  anos. 

Auto  16.  Micer  Francisco  de  Santa  Fe  complice  en  la  muerte  del 

En  el  por-    Santo  M®  Epila  estando  preso  en  la  Inquisicion  viernes  a 

Ton  ^sda-    ^^  ^^  Deziembre  de  este  ano  1486,  entre  ocho  y  nueve 

mente    a    de  la  manana  se  arrojo  desde  las  almenas  de  la  torre  en 

este  reo.      donde   estava  su    carcel,  en   camisa,  y  del   golpe   quedo 

145b.       niuerto,  y  este  dia  lo  Uevaron  junto  al  portillo,  y  alii  le 

mandaron  leer  los  Inquisidores  su  processo  en  donde  se 

dijo  como  avia  passado  a  las  ceremonias  Judaycas,  y  que 

en  su  casa  ensenava  a  un  Judio  las  oraciones  dellas,  y 

dezia  que  la  ley  de  Moysen  era  mejor  que  la  de  cristo, 

y  que  qualquier  buen  Judio  se  podra  salvar,  era  retajado,  y 

leyda  su  sentencia  le  quemaron  y  pusieron  los  guesos  en 

su  camisa  y  en  una  cajuela  lo  hecharon  por  ebro  abajo. 

Este  auto  lo  qiiento  por  el  16,  por  averse  hecho  con  toda 

esta  solennidad. 

Auto  17.  A  17  de  Deziembre  domingo  en  la  seo  predico  el  M°  Martin 

1486 .       Garcia  y  fueron  condenados  por  hereges  los  que  se  siguien. 

1.  Fernan  lopez  de  Teruel  porque  siendo  cristiano  hazia  ayunos 

y  ceremonias  de  Judios,  y  dezia  que  la  ley  de  Moysen  era 
mejor  que  la  de  los  cristianos,  y  quando  se  confessava 
nunca  dezia  verdad. 

2.  Bernad  Sabadias  por  lo  mismo  y  teniendo  por  mejor  la  ley 

de  Moysen  dezia  que  la  de  los  cristianos  toda  era  trancos 
barrancos  (?). 

3.  Bartolome  Sanchez  por  ayunos  y  manjares  Judaycos,  yr  a 

la  sinagoga  con  los  Judios,  y  aver  dicho  a  uno  dellos, 
Cornelio  bien  te  estas  en  la  ley  de  Moysen  que  mejor  es  que 
la  de  los  cristianos. 

4.  Gilabert  de  Almazan  que  siendo  cristiano  passo  a  los  man- 

jares y  ceremonias  Judaycas,  dezir  que  tan  bien  se  podra 
salvar  el  buen  Judio  como  el  cristiano  y  que  no  havia 
Infierno,  y  que  el  Parayso  era  tener  dinero,  y  que  un  dia 
que  jurava  por  la  ostia  consagrada,  sabiendo  uno  de  los 
que  le  oyeron  que  mentia  le  dijo  que  porque  jurava  men- 
tiendo,  y  le  respondio  que  todo  el  juramento  era  burla,  y 
quando  alzavan  en  lamissa  se  passeava  sin  arrodillarse 
jamas. 

5.  Beatriz  Daniel,  muger  de  caseda  el  calcetero,  porque  despues 

de  vuelta  cristiana  siguio  los  ritos  Judaycos. 

6.  Isavel  Matheo,  muger  de  Leonart  Sanchez  por  lo  mismo,  y 

aver  ydo  a  la  fiesta  de  la  circuncision  de  un  Judio. 

7.  Isavel  Belloc,  muger  de   Leonart  de  Sabrelas,   per  cere- 

monias, manjares  y  ayunos  Judaycos. 


602 


APPENDIX 


8.  Salio  tambien  un  cristiano  por  blasfemo  de  dios  y  de  nuestra 

senora,  atravesada  la  lengua  por  una  cafia  el  rato  que  duro 
el  officio. 

9.  Un  Judio  por  blasfemo,  con  freno  en  la  boca,  y  espuerta  de 

paja  y  coroza.     estuvo  assi  quando  duro  el  officio 
Auto  18.  A  21  de  henero  Jueves  en  la  plaza  del  Portillo,  predico  el 
1487.       M*^  Martinez,  y  salieron  condenados  al  fuego 

1.  Joan  de  la  badia  difunto,  sobre  una  cavalgadura,  que  el  dia 

antes  se  desespero  en  la  carcel  comiendose  una  lampara  de 
vidro  a  pedacitos,  fue  este  malvado  quien  anduvo  mas  de 
ano  y  medio  por  matar  al  Santo  Inq""  M®  Epila  en  com- 
pania  de  Esperandeu,  Mateo  Ram,  Vidau  f ranees  y  otros 
Judios  inducidores  que  y  van  en  su  compaflia  con  mascaras, 
este  Juan  de  labadia  fue  quien  dijo  a  Vidau  f ranees  dale 
que  este  es.  Arrastraronle  difunto,  y  le  cortaron  las  manos, 
y  lo  hizieron  quartos,  que  los  pusieron  por  los  caminos. 

2.  Pedro  de  Almazan  mercader  que  despues  de  cristiano  hizo 

ceremonias  de  Judios,  inducidor  y  complice  de  dicha 
muerte,  fue  queraado  in  estatua. 

3.  Anton  Perez,  que  vuelto  cristiano  hizo  ceremonias  Judaycas, 

y  tratandose  un  dia  en  su  presencia  del  S^  Inq*^**'  dizo  que 
seria  niejor  matalle,  y  que  se  haria  con  200  florines.  fue 
quemado  en  estatua. 

4.  Joan  Belenguer  corredor,  que  despues  de  convertido  a  la  fe 

volvio  a  los  ritos  de  Judios  y  un  Jueves  santo  lo  hizieron 
azotador  de  Jesu  cristo,  y  el  se  alababa  dello,  diziendo  yo 
OS  juro  a  dios  que  yo  me  bengare  y  me  tirare  el  deseo  y  le 
fustigare  de  azotes,  yva  con  su  muger  a  las  cabanas  de  los 
Judios  y  dezia  Yo  Judio  soy,  y  tengo  placer  de  ser  Judio. 
quemaronle  en  estatua. 

5.  Pedro  de  Vera  notario,  que  vuelto   cristiano  volvio  a  los 

ritos   y    manjares    Judaycos,  ayunava    el    quipur,   y    era 

recogedor  de  la  moneda  y  bolsa  de  los  confesses,  y  encendia 

las  lamparas  de  la  sinagoga.     quemaronle  in  estatua. 

Auto  19.  A  15  de  Febrero  domingo,  en  la  seo,  Predico  fray  Pedro 

1487 .       ferriz  Prior  de  S.  Augustin,  salieron  en  el  auto  los  siguientes. 

1.  Anton  de  ojos  negros  fapatero,  por  ceremonias  y  ayunos 

de  Judio  y  dezir  que  nuestra  santa  ley  era  burla  y  que  no 
la  creya. 

2.  Ramon  Cruyllas,  que  siendo  cristiano  hazia  ritos  de  Judio. 

3.  Jayme  de  Robas  mercader,  que  vuelto  cristiano  passo  a  las 

ceremonias  Judaycas  y  por  consejo  de  Pedro  de  Urrea  y 
de  Alvaro  de  Segovia  dava  limosna  a  los  Judios  y  dezia 
que  el  misterio  de  los  santos  corporales  de  daroca  era  cosa 
de  burla  y  bellaqueria,  y  que  no  lo  creya  nada. 


DOCUMENTS  g03 

4.  Joana  de  la  Tiria,  muger  de  diego  de  la  Tiria  sastre,  vuelta 

cristiana  uso  de  todas  las  ceremonias  de  Judios,  no  savia 
del  credo  sino  asta  creatorem  cell  et  terrae,  no  creya  que  en 
la  ostia  consagrada  estuviesse  el  cuerpo  de  Cristo  dios  y 
hombre,  dezia  que  los  Judios  no  le  avian  muerto  y  avia 
ayunado  el  quipur  mas  de  30  anos. 

5.  W  Joan  de  lo  poret  bainero  por  casado  dos  vezes. 

6.  Leonor  Calvo  segunda  muger  de   loporet,  en  vida  de  su 

marido. 
Auto  20.  A  15  de  Marzo  en  la  plaza  de  la  seo  Jueves.     Predico  el 
1487.       Maestro  Miguel  y  fueron  condenados  al  fuego 

1.  Joan  Rodriguez  mercader,  porque  vuelto  cristiano  volvio  a 

las  ceremonias  y  ritos  de  Judio,  y  dezia  cristianos  de  natura 
cristianos  de  mala  ventura,  y  quando  alguno  dezia  Jesus 
respondia  callad  que  es  nombre  de  Penzat. 

2.  Pedro  fernandez  corredor  despues  de  cristiano  volvio  a  las 

ceremonias  de  Judio,  y  estando  muy  enfermo  le  dezia  una 
hermana  suya,  hermano  encomendaos  al  dios  de  Abraham, 
y  el  no  le  respondia. 

3.  Joan  ortigas  mayor,  corredor,  que  vuelto  cristiano  Judayzo 

y  comia  came  en  la  quaresma,  y  dezia  aquel  refran  de 
cristianos  de  natura  &c.,  y  porque  sermonava  en  casa  de 
un  Judio  la  ley  de  Moysen  donde  azotavan  la  imagen  de 
un  crucefisso,  y  el  era  uno  de  los  que  azotavan,  y  despues 
lo  hecharon  en  el  fuego  para  que  se  quemasse.  quemaronle 
en  estatua  a  este  impio. 

4.  Joan  Ram  despues  de  hecho  cristiano  volvio  a  los  ritos  de 

Judio  y  llebaba  una  nomina  escrita  en  hebreo,  fue  yerno 
de  Joan  de  Perosanchez  y  factor  y  assessino  del  S^  Inq*"" 
y  daba'dinero  para  hazerla. — quemaronle  en  estatua. 

5.  M"^  Alonso  Sanchez,  por  ceremonias  y  comidas  de  Judios,  y 

porque  bestido  con  roquete  como  Rabi  ley  a  a  otros  malos 
cristianos  la  ley  de  Moysen,  y  azotaban  despues  un  cruci- 
fisso  y  lo  arrojavan  en  el  fuego.  Ybase  a  la  sinagoga  a  rezar 
con  su  capirote  y  tabardo  de  Judio  y  trabajo  con  todas 
sus  fuerzas  porque  matassen  al  S*^  Inq^*^,  y  por  ello 
prometio  buena  paga  y  lo  trato  con  algunos  diziendoles 
que  sino  querian  matar  al  Inq^''  M®  Epila  almenos  matassen 
a  M""  Martin  de  la  Raga  qui  era  Asessor  de  la  enquesta. 
Arrastraron  su  estatua  y  despues  la  quemaron. 

6.  Garcia  de  Moros,  notario,  que  vuelto  cristiano  volvio  tan 

bien  a  las  ceremonias  Judaycas,  y  aver  dicho  dos  dias  antes 
que  matassen  al  S**'  Inq®*"  a  un  amigo  suyo  a  quien  el 
solicitava  mucho  para  dicha  muerte,  haveys  visto  que  caso 
ha  sido  matar  a  m'"  Pertusa,  pues  antes  de  muchos  domingos 


604 


APPENDIX 


Todas  tres  por  ceremo- 
nias  ayunos  y  comeres 
Judaycos  fueron  que- 
madas  en  estatua. 


vereys  otro  caso  mayor,  y  que  despues  de  muerto  el  S*° 
Inq*'''  dijo  a  un  otro  amigo,  que  os  pareze  de  esta  muerte, 
quan  bien  hecha  ha  sido,  y  respondiendole  el  amigo  que  no 
dizesse  tal,  y  reprehendendole  dello,  le  bolbio  a  dezir,  dejaos 
estar  desso  que  todo  se  passara.  Arrastraron  y  quemaron 
su  estatua. 

7.  Leonor  Perez,  muger  de  Garci 

lopez. 

8.  Angelina    Sanchez,    muger    de 

Guillen  Buysan, 

9.  Gostanza  de  Segovia,  muger  de 

luys  de  la  cabra,  argentero, 
10.  Joan  Frances,  despues  de  cristiano  hizo  ceremonias  de 
Judios  y  dezia  el  salmo  de  la  maldicion  porque  dios  matasse 
al  Inq""^  al  Rey  y  a  la  Reyna,  dezia  que  no  avia  otro  parayso 
sino  el  dinero  y  que  mas  queria  yr  al  Infierno  con  los  ricos 
que  al  parayso,  y  quando  yva  a  missa  dezia  por  escarnio 
que  yva  a  masar,  fue  sospechoso  en  la  muerte  del  S*^  Inq®'. 
quemaronle. 
12  (11?).  Mateo  Ram,  despues  de  hecho  cristiano  volvio  a 
Judayzar  y  travajo  mucho  en  procurar  se  effectuasse  la 
muerte  del  S^  Inq""^  y  aunque  esperandeu  le  hirio  con 
una  estocada  en  el  brazo  y  Vidau  con  la  cuchillada  del 
cuello,  este  Mateo  le  dio  una  estocada  que  le  passo  el 
cuerpo.  Arrastraronle  y  le  cortaron  las  manos  y  las 
clabaron  en  la  puerta  de  la  diputacion,  y  despues  le  quema- 
ron. 

Auto  21.  El  primero  de  Abril,  domingo  en  el  hospital,  predico  el  M° 

1487.       Martin  Garcia,  y  pusieron  en  un  cadaalso  a  la  puerta  de 

la  yglesia  a  un 

1.  Clerigo  porque  se  avia  fingido  Inquisidor  con  una  probision 

falsa  en  un  lugar  de  Mossen  Belenguer  de  Bardaxi,  y  avia 

hecho  una  prision  a  esse  pueblo. 

Auto  22.  A  6  de  Mayo,  domingo,  en  la  seo  predico  el  M°  Martin 
1487.       Garcia  y  estuvieron  con  cirios  al  pie  del  altar  en  todo  el 
officio  los  siguientes. 

1.  Mossen  Guillen  Sanchez, 

2.  Joan  de  fatas,  notario, 

3.  Pedro  Augustin, 

4.  Bernardo  Bernardi,  florentin 

5.  Pedro  Celdrion.    Todos  cinco  porque  fueron  defensores  de 
\  Joan  de  Pero  Sanchez,  heretico,  sacrilego.  Matador  del  S*° 

Inq""^  y  invocador  de  Assessines  y  matadores. 

estando  el  dicho  Joan  de  Perosanchez  presso  en  la  ciudad 

de  Tolosa  de  Francia  a  instancia  de  un  estudiante  que  se 


DOCUMENTS  605 

llamava  Antonio  Augustin,  que  despues  fue  —  de  Aragon, 
y  de  otros  dos  estudiantes  que  lo  escrivieron  luego  con  sus 
criados  avisandolo  a  los  Inq^^  de  QJaragoga  como  le  avian 
hecho  prender.  Vinieron  los  criados  con  las  cartas  a  la  casa 
de  los  dichos  Joan  de  fatas  y  Pedro  Augustin  su  hermano, 
donde  los  detuvieron  abriendo  las  cartas  y  las  mostraron 
al  dicho  Mossen  Guillen  Sanchez  hermano  del  dicho  Joan 
de  Perosanchez,  y  luego  escrivieron  todos  los  cinco  a  los 
estudiantes  de  Tolosa  y  a  otros  amigos  para  que  alii  renun- 
ciassen  el  reclamo  de  la  prision  y  le  hiziessen  soltar,  y  assi 
se  hizo,  y  despues  de  hecha  esta  diligencia  con  ellos  dieron 
las  cartas  a  los  Inq^®^  y  ellos  despacharon  a  Tolosa  para 
que  lo  tuviessen  a  buen  recado,  pero  ya  entonces  estava  libre 
de  la  carcel  Joan  de  Perosanchez.  Por  este  deUcto  los 
hizieron  abjurar  a  los  cincos  y  que  si  tornavan  a  hazer  tal  o 
seme j ante  dehcto  les  darian  la  pena  del  derecho,  y  los 
condenaron  a  todos  cinco  en  mil  florines  de  oro  y  en  las 
expensas  hechas  y  por  hazer,  y  los  pribaron  de  sus  officios 
quedando  en  arbitrio  de  los  Inq'^^  el  priballos  de  officio  y 
beneficio. 
Auto  23.  A  20  de  Mayo,  domingo  en  la  seo,  Predico  el  W  Forcat,  y 
1487.  huvo  en  el  cadalso  6  mugeres  y  un  hombre,  y  al  pie  del 
altar  quatro  hombres. 

1.  Leonor  Castillo  muger  de  Alvaro  de  Sevilla,  Judayzante. 

2.  Beatriz  Coscolluela  muger  de  Pedro  Pedraza,  Judayzante. 

3.  Joana  Trigo,  muger  de  Joan  de  Altabas,  Judayzante. 

4.  Isavel  de  Rueda,  madre  de  Pedro  Salvador,  lo  mismo. 

5.  Violante  Mongua,  muger  de  Jayme  Santa  Clara,  lo  mismo, 

6.  Maria  del  Rio,  muger  de  Gonzalo  Ruyz,  Judayzante  y  comer 

carne  en  quaresma. 

7.  Joan  de  Altabas,  pintor,  por  ceremonias  de  Judios. 

8.  Anton  de  Jassa  despues  de  cristiano  por  Judayzante  comer 

arrecuques  y  Amin  y  carne  en  quaresma,  y  sospechoso  de 
la  muerte  del  S*°  Inq*"". 

9.  Garcia  de  Moros  el  Joben  estuvo  con  un  cirio  por  sospechoso 

de  la  dicha  muerte,  y  por  yv  a  jugar  a  las  cananuelas  de 
los  Judios. 

10.  Pedro  Pinet  capellan  de  Alcaiiiz  que  defendia  cinco  opiniones 

hereticas  contra  la  s™*  trinidad. 

11.  Joan  Traper  por  fautor  y  defensor  de  hereges,  y  aver  querido 

matar  a  Anton  Baptista  por  un  testimonio  signado  que  no 
se  puede  aver,  y  dezir  yo  tanto  tengo  de  una  missa  como 
un  asno  de  una  albarda,  y  que  queria  hazer  un  hijo  en 
savado  para  que  fuesse  Ravi  y  por  sospechoso  en  la 
muerte  del  S^°  ln(f\ 


606 


APPENDIX 


Auto  24.  A  18  de  Agosto  savado  en  la  plaza  de  la  seo,  Predico  el  W 
1487.       Martin  Garcia,  fueron  condenados  a  muerte  y  al  fuego, 

1.  Diego  de  Gotor  notario  y  procurador,  que  despues  de  conver- 

tido  a  la  fe  volvio  a  las  ceremonias  de  Judio,  y  dijo  que 
seria  bien  matar  al  S^''  Inq*^"^  porque  no  osasse  venir  otro,  y 
que  assi  se  desharia  la  enquesta.     quemaronle  en  estatua. 

2.  Pedro  de  Almazan  menor,  que  convertido  a  la  fe  volvio  a 

las  ceremonias  y  manjares  Judaycos,  y  dijo  que  seria  bien 
matar  al  S*^  Inq"''  y  dio  dinero  en  la  bolsa  comun  para 
dicha  muerte,  y  averse  allado  con  otros  en  azotar  un  cru- 
cifisso — quemaronle  en  estatua. 

3.  Pedro  Salvador,  hijo  de  martin  Salvador,  nieto  de  Joan  de  la 

badia  porque  cupo  en  la  muerte  del  S'"  Inq""",  y  aver  dado 
de  puiialadas  a  la  muger  de  Pedro  el  carnicero  porque  avia 
sido  testigo  en  la  enquesta  contra  su  madre.  le  quemaron 
en  estatua. 

4.  N.  muger  de  Pedro  Navarro,  botiguero  que  hecha  cristiana 

volvio  a  los  ritos,  ayunos  y  ceremonias  de  Judios,  y  que  al 
tiempo  de  alzar  el  SS"^**  SS*°  vol  via  los  ojos  por  no  verlo. 
— quemaronla. 

5.  La  madre  de  Anton  Romeo,  que  convertida  a  la  fe  volvio  a 

los  ritos  de  Judios. 

6.  Leonor  de  Bello,  madre  de  Abadia,  por  Judayzante,  que- 

mada  en  estatua. 

7.  Valentina  Tamarit,  muger  de  luys  de  Joansanchez,  lo  mismo. 

8.  Mossen  luys  de  Santangel,  a  quien  el  Rey  don  Jayme  [Juan] 

armo  caballero  en  la  guerra  de  Cataluna,  despues  de  con- 
vertido a  la  fe  volvio  a  las  ceremonias  de  Judio,  y  hazia 
oracion  en  hebreo,  y  tenia  la  Tora  en  un  altar  en  la  torre 
de  la  huerta,  y  teniendo  enfermo  a  un  hijo  dijo  que  dios 
no  le  podra  sanar,  y  a  un  capellan  que  le  dezia  unas  missas, 
Mas  creo  y  mas  fe  doy  a  un  p'.  x''.  que  dize  mi  hija  casera 
suya  que  a  quanto  vos  dezis.  y  a  una  ymagen  de  un  cruci- 
fisso  la  azotava,  y  escupia  en  la  cara,  y  le  hazia  muchos 
vituperios,  y  lo  tenia  embuelto  en  un  trapello  bien  ligado 
con  Unas  cabezadas  de  mula.  y  se  avian  ajuntado  en  su 
casa,  que  era  la  que  agora  es  de  Alonso  Celdron  Bayle, 
para  tratar  la  muerte  del  S'°  Inq*""  los  siguientes,  Joan  de 
Perosanchez,  Gaspar  Santa  Cruz,  Garcia  de  Moros,  Mateo 
Ram,  Micer  Alonso  Sanchez,  Micer  Montesa  y  otros.  Y 
otra  vez  se  juntaron  en  casa  de  dicho  Montesa,  otra  en  el 
Portillo,  otra  en  Santa  Engracia,  otra  en  el  Temple,  y  el 
dijo  a  los  otros  que  matassen  al  Inq*"*  y  a  M*"  Martin  de 
la  Raga,  y  a  M""  Montes  frances  a  todos  tres  y  a  alguno 
dellos,  y  como  fue  alii  concertado  tomo  cargo  dello  el  dicho 


DOCUMENTS  607 

Mossen  luys  Santangel  porque  era  hombre  de  espada,  y 
Joan  de  Perosanchez  que  era  hombre  dineroso,  y  ambos 
dieron  la  orden  y  recado  para  que  se  hiziesse  la  muerte. 
Micer  Algar  Reg'®  le  dio  por  sentencia  que  le  fuesse  cortada 
la  cabeza  en  el  mercado,  y  que  le  pusiesse  en  un  pale,  y  que 
el  cuerpo  fuesse  quemado  fuera  de  la  puerta  quern  ada,  y 
assi  se  executo. 
Auto  25.  A  20  de  Agosto  lunes  en  la  plaza  de  la  seo,  predico  el  M° 
1487.  Martinez,  fueron  condenados  a  muerte  tres  hombres  y  una 
estatua. 
1.  M  Jayrae  Montesa  Jurista,  del  qual  dijo  su  processo  que 
despues  de  convertido  a  la  fe  hazia  ceremonias  de  Judio, 
y  que  un  Viernes  santo  estando  en  Calatayud  hizieron  unas 
desponsalias  de  un  Judio  con  una  Judia  y  dijo  M""  Montesa 
a  un  escudero  suyo  que  baylasse  en  ellas,  y  el  le  respondio 
que  no  baylaria  en  tal  dia  porque  mas  era  dia  de  plorar, 
porque  estando  los  cristianos  en  la  yglesia  en  tales  dias  no 
era  hora  de  reyr,  y  dijole  Montesa  que  si  facian  el  planto, 
que  dios  les  diesse  el  crebanto,  y  esto  otorgo  muy  larga- 
mente  por  escritura  de  su  mano,  y  como  se  havia  allado  en 
el  trato  de  la  muerte  del  S'°  Inq°''  M*^  Epila,  y  como  para 
ello  se  havian  ajuntado  en  el  temple  dos  meses  antes  que 
la  executassen  el  y  Mosen  luys  de  santangel,  Joan  de 
Perosanchez,  Caspar  de  Santa  Cruz,  Carcia  de  Moros,  M"" 
Alonso  Sanchez,  Martin  de  Santangel  y  otros  que  alii  se 
hallaron,  y  que  dieron  poder  a  Joan  Sanchez  porque  era 
dineroso,  y  a  Mossen  luys  porque  era  de  Espada,  y  a  otros 
que  no  se  nombran,  que  en  ello  diessen  orden  y  recado  para 
hazer  esta  muerte  y  la  de  M  Martin  de  la  Raga  y  de  M"" 
Pedro  Montes  frances,  y  que  los  sobredichos  se  ajuntaron 
otra  vez  en  el  portillo  y  dijeron  como  que  se  tardava 
mucho,  y  que  no  se  hazia  nada,  y  respondieron  los  que  lo 
tenian  a  su  cargo  como  ya  se  travajava  en  ella  y  que  tenian 
personas  que  la  pondrian  en  execucion,  y  que  havian  estado 
dos  noches  en  la  seo  en  Maytines  y  no  le  havian  podido  allar 
y  que  no  cuydassen  dello  que  muy  presto  pondrian  en 
effecto  dicha  muerte,  y  que  al  cavo  de  pocos  dias  se  vol- 
vieron  a  juntar  en  S**  Engracia  y  les  dijeron  otra  vez  a 
los  solicitadores  de  este  caso  que  como  se  tardava  tanto  y 
respondieron  que  presto  darian  recado  en  dicha  muerte, 
la  qual  perpetraron  de  alii  a  pocos  dias.  Mas  dezian  en 
su  processo  que  habia  el  conbidado  o  allado  a  un  hombre 
para  si  queria  matar  al  Inq*"'  y  que  el  hombre  le  respondio 
que  no,  y  despues  que  fue  muerto  el  Inq'^''  se  topo  con  el 
dicho  hombre  y  le  dijo,  Bueno  fuera  ganar  150  florines 


608 


APPENDIX 


que  ya  es  fecho  aquello,  a  lo  qual  le  respondio  el  hombre, 
Buen  provecho  os  haga,  que  yo  no  me  euro  dello,  Antes 
creo  que  todo  este  mal  vendra  sobre  vosotros,  a  lo  qual  le 
respondio  M""  Montesa  lo  fecho  fecho  es,  que  con  el  dinero  lo 
farcmos  todo  bueno  con  el  Rey  y  con  la  Reyna,  y  todos  los 
de  la  corte  son  nuestros,  y  los  grandes  de  este  reyno  tan 
bien,  que  todo  se  passara.  Y  un  dia  despues  del  caso  se 
hallaron  dichos  M""  Montesa  y  Gaspar  de  Santa  Cruz  y  que 
le  dijo  600  florines  questa  la  muerte  del  Inq^'.  fuele  dada 
sentencia  por  M""  Algar  Reg*®  que  le  cortasen  la  cabeza  en 
el  mercado  y  la  pusiessen  en  un  palo,  y  le  quemassen  el 
cuerpo  fuera  de  la  puerta  quemada. 

2.  Leonor  Montesa,  hija  de  dicho  M"^  Jayme  Montesa,  muger 

de  Joan  de  Santa  fe  de  Tarazona,  siendo  Bautizada  vivia 
como  Judia  y  seguia  sus  ritos,  y  avia  50  anos  que  ayunava 
el  quipur  y  dava  limosna  a  la  cedaza  y  aceyte  a  las  lam- 
paras  de  la  sinagoga.     quemaronla. 

3.  Violante  de  leon,  Madre  de  Galceran  de  leon  procurador  por 

lo  mismo  que  a  la  dicha  leonor,  y  porque  no  creya  que  en 
la  ostia  consagrada  estuviesse  dios.     quemaronla. 

4.  Cristoval  de  Gelva,  despues  de  convertido  a  la  fe,  Judayzo  y 

passo  a  la  ley  de  Mahoma,  dieronle  por  carcel  perpetua  el 
hospital  de  nuestra  S*.  de  Gracia,  como  a  Relapso,  y  que- 
branto  la  carzel,  y  le  quemaron  en  estatua. 
Auto  26.  A  8  de  Diz®  domingo  en  la  seo,  predico  el  Maestro  Martinez, 

1487.  fueron  sacados  al  cadaalso  por  hereges 

1.  Dona  Catalina  de  Cuenca  que  hecha  cristiana  volvio  a  las 

ceremonias  de  la  ley  de  Moysen  y  tuvo  algunos  errores. 

2.  Esperanza  Quilloc. 

3.  Clara  Cerbellon,  muger  de  Ginones  verguero 

4.  Maria  Rodriguez  muger  de  Pedro  Angel  chapmero 

5.  Leonor  Maza,  muger  de  Jayme  Garcia  mercader 

6.  Isavel  de  Genua  muger  de  Bar*^  de  Soria  potrero, 

7.  Brianda  de  Gauna  hija  de  Mossen  Alvaro  de  Gauna, 

8.  Gracia  de  Anguas  Vivas,  muger  de  Joan  Ruyz  calcetero  y 

de  Guillen  Ruyz  belero. 

9.  Isavel  de  leon,  muger  de  Joan  de  leon  calcetero,  fue  a  los 

desposorios  de  Jaque  Judio  hermano  de  su  marido. 

Todos  nueve  por  Judayzantes,  ayunos  y  comeres  de 
Judios. 
Auto  27.  A  10  de  Febrero  Domingo,  en  la  seo,  Predico  el  Maestro 

1488.  Alfonso  forea,  canonigo  de  nuestra  Senora  y  salieron  peni- 
tenciados  en  el 

1.  Mossen   Pedro   Santangel   Prior  de  daroca,  dezia   su   pro- 
cesso  que  rogo  y  pago  a  Joan  Gascon  casero  de  la  Torre  de 


DOCUMENTS  609 

Mossen  Luys  porque  digesse  a  los  Inq®^  que  Mossen  Luys 
era  biien  cristiano  y  que  el  lo  havia  visto  disciplinarse 
delante  de  un  crucifisso,  y  no  era  verdad.  estas  y  otras  cosas 
hizo  por  escapar  a  su  hermano  y  por  esse  estuvo  con  un 
cirio  en  la  mano  delante  del  altar  mayor,  y  no  le  privaron 
de  nada. 

2.  Joan  Gascon  porque  testiguo  en  favor  de  Mossen  Luys  por 

rogarias  del  dicho  Prior,  dijo  que  havia  dicho  verdad  en 
lo  que  avia  testificado,  le  dieron  la  misma  penitencia. 

3.  Jayme  diez  de  Almendarez  sefior  de  Cadreyta  navarro  porque 

tuvo  en  su  casa  y  favorecio  a  Martin  de  Santangel  a  Garcia 
de  Moros  y  a  Gaspar  de  Santa  Cruz  y  a  su  muger,  y  recivio 
dellos  sesenta  florines  que  le  dieron  de  oro.  fue  peniten- 
ciado  como  los  precedentes. 

4.  Manuel   de   Tudela   pontero,   por   aver  ydo   a  Villanueva 

muchas  vezes  a  persuadir  a  una  muger  que  se  retratasse 
de  lo  que  avia  testificado  contra  Violante  Ruiz  Viuda  de 
N.  de  Santa  Maria,  dieronle  la  misma  penitencia. 

5.  Elvira  de  Uncastillo    por  aver  depuesto    por  rogarias  del 

Prior  de  daroca  en  favor  de  su  hermano  el  dicho  Mossen 
luys  de  Santangel,  y  confesso  que  no  era  verdad  lo  que 
avia  dicho  contra  el,  la  misma  penitencia. 

6.  Joan  Julian  corredor  por  aver  solicitado  por  orden  de  Jayme 

trafer  el  qual  le  dio  20  florines  de  oro  y  casa  franca  de 
loguero  a  una  muger  para  que  se  desdigesse.  dieronle  la 
misma  penitencia. 

7.  Nicolao  suseda  Borgonon  por  casado  doz  vezes  estuvo  con 

coroza  y  fue  condenado  a  carcel  perpetua. 

8.  Violante  Ram,  muger  de  N.  Altabas  por  aver  ayunado  el 

quipur  y  ensenadolo  a  los  muchachos  que  tenia,  salio  con 
coroza  y  carcel  perpetua. 

9.  Sancho  de  Pena  panicero  por  casado  dos  vezes,  coroza  y 

carcel  perpetua.  » 

10.  Joan  de  Zamora  porque  estando  en  la  ciudad  de  Medina 
ablando  con  unos  hombres  de  la  ostia  consagrada  que 
dichas  aquellas  palabras  estava  dios  alii,  respondio  el 
andad  alia  que  es  burla  que  dios  no  baja  a  ella,  que 
yo  se  como  se  hazen  aquellas  ostias  con  unos  hierros, 
que  todo  es  burla  que  alii  no  esta  dios.  diosele  carcel 
perpetua. 
Auto  28.  A  15  de  Febrero  Biernes  sacaron  muerto  de  la  Aljaferia  a 
1488.  1.  Pedro  Navarro  chapinero  que  estava  preso  por  herege 
y  murio  de  enfermedad,  sacaronle  a  quemar,  y  estava  cir- 
cuncidado,  y  circuncidava  sus  hijos,  y  vivia  como  Judio  y 
ayunava  el  quipur. 

39 


QIQ  APPENDIX 

Auto  29.  A  2  de  Marzo,  domingo  en  la  seo,  Predico  el  Maestro  Martin 
1488.       Garcia  y  salieron  a  el  las  siguientes. 

1.  Aldonza  Ribas  Altas  que  por  estar  enferma  la  llevaron  en  un 

escano  delante  del  altar  mayor  con  coroza  y  manteta  por 
Judayzante,  esta  era  Madre  de  Maestre  Ribas  altas  medico 
del  Rey  catolico  don  fernando  el  de  la  poma  de  oro  que  fue 
quemado  vivo  por  traer  en  la  poma  un  pergaminillo  y  en 
el  pintado  a  cristo  n.  s^  crucificado  y  sobre  el  retratado  el 
medico  asentado  de  forma  que  parecia  le  besava  la  santa 
Imagen  en  el  culo.  dizen  que  viendo  este  pergamino  el 
Principe  don  Joan  que  lo  mostro  al  Rey  catolico  su  padre 
y  que  de  a}''  tuvo  origen  el  mandar  expeler  los  Judios  de 
espana  sino  se  convertian. 

2.  Maria  de  Esplugas,  hija  de  Gilaberte  de  Esplugas  porque 

siendo  cristiana  usso  de  ceremonias  y  man j  ares  de  Judios, 
y  por  consilio  de  su  madre  ayunava  el  quipur,  y  despues 
que  huvo  visitado  las  yglesias  un  Juebes  S*°  fue  a  la  Juderia 
a  hacer  colacion,  y  comio  arecuques,  no  la  privaron  de 
bienes  por  averse  ydo  ella  espontaneamente  a  delatar. 

3.  Justina  Macipe  1  -r, 

4.  Pedro  de  Segovia  LdaTaT  ^  '^"^°"°^^ 

5.  Joan  de  Prades,  tegedor  J  ^ 

6.  Pedro  fernandez,  panicero         1  -r,  ,       , 

7.  Pasqual  de  Reglas,  labrador    J  ^^^  ^^^^^°«  ^'^^  ^^^^«- 

Ciudadanos  de  Tudela  salieron  de- 


8.  Pedro  Gomez,  Alcayde 

9.  Guillen  de  fatas 

10.  Martin  de  Aguas 

11.  Pedro  Manarriz 

12.  Joan  Bazquez 

13.  Joan  de  Aguas 

14.  Joan  de  Magallon 

15.  Joan  de  Carriazo 

16.  Otro  hombre 


lante  del  altar  mayor  por  solici- 
tadores  de  Joan  de  Perosanchez 
y  de  su  muger,  Martin  de  Sant 
Angel,  Gaspar  de  Santa  Cruz  y 
su  muger,  Garcia  de  Moros, 
Mossen  Pedro  Manas  y  de  los 
dos  Pedro  de  Almazan  mayor  y 
menor,  todos  hereges  y  factores 
de  la  muerte  del  S^°  Inq""". 

Auto  30.  March  21,  1488,  Eleven  penanced. 

Auto  31.  May  4,  1488,  Three  penanced. 

Auto  32.  Aug.  10,  1488,  Five  penanced. 

Auto  33.  August  17,  1488,  One  penanced. 

Auto  34.  September  7,  1488,  One  penanced. 

Auto  35.  January  25,  1489,  Fourteen  penanced. 

Auto  36.  May  2,  1489,  Two  penanced  and  three  burnt. 

Auto  37.  May  10,  1489,  Thirty-eight  penanced. 

Auto  38.  May  2,  1490,  Twenty-nine  penanced. 

Auto  39.  May  9,  1490,  Twenty-seven  penanced. 

Auto  40.  November  28,  1490,  Seventeen  penanced. 


DOCUMENTS  fiU 

Auto  41.  April  22,  1491,  Eight  penanced  and  one  burnt. 

Auto  42.  May  15,  1491.  Twenty-four  penanced. 

Auto  43.  July  8,  1491,  Ten  burnt. 

Auto  44.  July  17,  1491,  Six  penanced. 

Auto  45.  March  28,  1492,  Eleven  penanced. 

Auto  45  {sic).  September  8,  1492,  Twenty-one  penanced. 

Auto  46.  September  28,  1492,  Thirteen  burnt. 

Auto  47.  November  11,  1492,  Twelve  penanced. 

Auto  48.  June  2,  1493,  Nine  penanced  and  thirteen  burnt. 

Auto  49.  December  22,  1493,  Seventeen  penanced. 

Auto  50.  May  7,  1494,  Six  penanced. 

Auto  51.  January  9,  1495,  Six  burnt. 

Auto  52.  January  18,  1495,  Seven  penanced. 

Auto  53.  June  30,  1495,  Six  burnt. 

Auto  54.  July  2,  1495,  Fourteen  penanced. 

Auto  55.  October  7,  1496,  Twenty-two  penanced. 

Auto  56.  June  27,  1497,  Ten  penanced. 

Auto  57.  March  12,  1498,  Seven  penanced. 

Auto  58.  May  5,  1498,  Three  burnt. 

Auto  59.  February  22,  1499,  Eleven  burnt. 

Auto  60.  February  (August?)  4,  1499,  Seven  penanced. 

Auto  61.  September  13,  1499,  Four  burnt. 

Auto  62.  September  15,  1499,  Four  penanced. 

Auto  63.  January  18,  1500,  Six  penanced. 

Auto  64.  May  31,  1501,  Seventeen  penanced. 

Auto  65.  March  15,  1502,  Eleven  burnt. 

Resumen  de  los  castigados  en  los  Autos  referidos. 

Ano  1484,.  7  Aiio  1491.. 49  Ano  1497..  10 

1485..  3  1492.. 58  1498.. 10 

I486.. 80  1493.. 39  1499. .26 

1487.. 52  1494..  6  1500..  6 

1488.. 45  1495.. 34  1501.. 17 

1489.. 57  1496.. 22  1502.. 11 


1490.. 73 


602* 


'  The  total  number  is  614     There  is  a  mistake  of  3  in  the  addition,  and  eirori 
in  several  years. 


g-^2  APPENDIX 


XIII. 


Letter  of   Carlos  III  to  the  Pope,  December  26,  1774,  asking 

HIM    TO    concede    THE    FACULTIES    OF    InQUISITOR-GENERAL 

TO  Felipe  Bertran,  Bishop  of  Salamanca. 

(Archivo  General  de  Simancas,  Secretaria  de  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Legajo 

629,  fol.  15). 
(See  p.  304). 

MuY  Santo  Padre.  Por  muerte  del  muy  Reverendo  en  Christo 
Arzobispo,  Don  Manuel  Quintano  Bonifaz,  ha  vacado  el  cargo  de 
Inquisidor  General  de  todos  mis  Reynos,  y  deseando  que  quien  le 
huviere  de  succeder  en  este  empleo  sea  el  que  mas  convenga  al  servicio 
de  Dios  y  de  su  Iglesia,  conservacion  y  aumento  de  la  fe  catolica  he 
nombrado  al  muy  Reverendo  in  Christo  Padre  Don  Bertran,  Obispo 
de  Salamanca  por  concurrir  en  su  persona  las  calidades  de  virtud, 
sangre,  autoridad  y  prendas  que  le  hacen  digno  de  ocuparle,  y  encargo 
a  mi  Ministro  Plenipotentiario  Conde  de  Floridablaiica  que  en  mi 
Real  nombre  suplique  a  Vuestra  Santidad  tenga  por  bien  de  mandar 
despachar  a  favor  del  referido  Obispo  de  Salamanca  Don  Felipe  Ber- 
tran el  Breve  que  se  acostumbra  para  exercer  el  expresado  cargo,  y 
pido  a  Vuestra  Beatitud  que  dando  entera  fe  y  credit©  al  Conde  de 
Floridablanca  en  lo  que  d  este  intento  representare  en  mi  Real  nombre 
se  sirva  Vuestra  Santidad  de  acordar  la  gracia  que  solicito.  Nuestro 
Senor  guarde  la  muy  Santa  persona  de  Vuestra  Beatitud  al  bueno  y 
prospero  Regimiento  de  su  universal  Iglesia.  De  Palacio  a  veinte  y 
seis  de  Diciembre  di  mil  setecientos  setenta  y  quarto. 

D.  V.  Sant"*- 

Muy  humilde  y  devoto  hijo  Don  Carlos,  por  la  gracia  de  Dios  Rey 
de  las  Espanas,  de  las  Dos  Sicilias,  de  Jerusalem  etc.  que  sus  santos 
pies  y  manos  besa.  El  Rey. 

Manuel  de  Roda. 

Formula  of  Papal  Appointment  (Ibidem,  fol.  1). 

Motu  proprio  et  ex  certa  scientia  ac  matura  deliberatione  nostris, 
deque  Apostolicae  potestatis  plenitudine,  te  in  prsedicti  Emmanuelis 
Archiepiscopi  locum  tenore  praesentium  Generalem  Inquisitorem 
adversus  hsereticam  et  apostaticam  a  Fide  Christiana  pravitatem  in 
Castellse  et  Legionis  cseterisque  Hispaniarum  et  ab  eis  dependentibus 
Regnis,  Principatibus  et  dominiis  eidem  Carolo  Regi  mediate  vel 
immediate  subjectis  .  .  .  Apostolica  auctoritate  tenore  praesen- 
tium ad  nostrum  et  Sedis  Apostolicae  beneplacitum,  creamus,  facimus, 
constituimus  et  deputamus. 


DOCUMENTS  g^S 


XIV. 

Resignation  of  Inquisitor-general  Sotomayor. 

(Archivo  de  Simancas,  Consejo  de  Inquisicion,  Libro  176,  fol  1) 
(See  p.  310). 

Letter  to  Philip  IV.— 

SE5foR.  Remito  a  V.  M.  esas  papeles  en  razon  de  la  renunciacion 
que  V.  M.  me  tiene  mandado  hazer  de  el  oficio  de  Inquisidor  general. 
Si  en  algo  no  fuesen  a  satisfacion  de  V.  M.  siempre  me  hallo  con  la 
misma  obediencia  a  quanto  V.  M.  fuese  servido  de  mandarme,  cuya 
Real  persona  guarde  nuestro  Serior  como  su  Santa  Iglesia  lo  a  men- 
ester  y  como  yo  siempre  se  lo  suplico.    De  Madrid  en  21  de  Junio,  1643. 

Besa  los  Reales  pies  de  V.  M.  su  mas  humilde  criado 

Fr.  Antonio. 


A  nuestro  santisimo  Padre  Urbano  8,  Sumo  Pontifice  de  la  Santa 
Iglesia  Romana  que  Dios  guarde. — 

j^mo  pe  Yo  fray  Antonio  de  Sotomayor,  Argobispo  de  Damasco, 
confesor  de  su  Magestad  Catholica  del  Rey  mi  senor  Phelipe  4^,  de 
su  consejo  de  estado,  comisario  general  de  la  santa  Cruzada,  Inquisidor 
general  en  sus  Reynos  y  dominios;  Hallandome  muy  cargado  de  aiios 
que  son  cerca  de  noventa,  6  por  lo  menos  ochenta  y  ocho  y  consiguiente- 
mente  casi  incapaz  de  poder  condignamente  satisfacer  d  oficios  de 
tantas  obligaciones  me  hallo  obligado,  postrado  a  sus  santisimos  pies, 
de  suplicarle  se  digne  de  escusarme  de  obUgaciones  tan  grandes  a  que 
con  tanta  dificultad  podre  satisfacer,  nominando  para  dichos  oficios 
las  personas  que  el  Rey  mi  senor  tiene  por  bien  de  presentar  a  vuestra 
Santidad,  que  seran  sin  duda  las  que  convengan  a  tan  grande  minis- 
terio,  y  para  suplir  las  muchas  faltas  que  yo  por  mi  insuficiencia  uviere 
cometido  en  su  administracion,  para  que,  a  la  hora  de  la  muerte  que 
no  se  me  puede  dilatar,  lleve  este  consuelo  quando  me  uviere  de  pre- 
sentar delante  de  la  divina  Magestad  que  sea  siempre  en  favor  de  su 
santisima  persona,  favoreciendola  con  muchos  favores  como  se  lo 
suplico  y  suplicare  siempre.    De  Madrid  24  de  Junio,  1643. 

Beatisimo  Padre. 

Besa  el  santisimo  pie  de  vuestra  Santidad  su  mas  humilde  siervo 

Fr.  Antonio  Inquisidor  General. 


614  APPENDIX 


XV. 

Extracts  from  the  Consulta  of  the  Council  of  the  Inquisition, 
May  5,  1646,  on  the  independent  Superiority  of  Inquisi- 
torial Jurisdiction  over  Officials. 

(Archivo  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  Legajo  528). 
(See  p.  346). 

Contra  estas  ragones  suelen  oponer  los  celadores  de  las  regalias  que 
la  distribucion  de  los  jurisdicciones  es  una  dellas  pegadas  a  los  mismos 
guesos  de  los  reyes,  que  con  estos  terminos  significan  su  inseparabilidad 
real  y  de  aqui  infieren  que  en  todo  tiempo  la  pueden  moderar  y  quitar 
sin  que  ninguna  potestad  se  lo  pueda  impedir. 

Senor,  esta  razon  tiene  el  vicio  de  que  prueba  mucho  y  si  no  se 
limita  y  restringe  a  la  intelligencia  sana  y  catolica  tira  a  destruir  toda 
la  jurisdiccion  eclesiastica  y  para  este  efecto  se  valio  de  ella  el  Rey 
Jacobo  de  Inglaterra  en  el  tratado  que  dedico  a  todos  los  principes 
cristianos,  provocandolos  a  todos  a  que  se  hiciese  cada  uno  una  cabega 
de  las  Iglesias  de  sus  reinos,  como  lo  era  de  la  anglicana,  y  la  limi- 
tacion  cierta  y  verdadera  de  la  dicha  razon  es  que  la  jurisdiccion  civil 
y  politica  es  inferior  a  la  espiritual  y  eclesiastica  y  que  para  materias 
que  le  tocan  por  la  potestad  directa  puede  tomar  y  asumir  por  la 
potestad  indirecta  todo  lo  que  ha  menester  para  su  conservacion  y 
recta  administracion  sin  que  las  puedan  impedir  ni  disponer  en  ellas 
los  principes  seculares.  Y  que  las  mas  propias  regalias  de  la  dignidad 
regia  son  de  derecho  humano  positivo  6  de  derecho  de  las  gentes,  y  la 
potestad  suprema  que  ejerce  la  inquisicion  por  delegacion  de  la  Sede 
apostolica  en  las  causas  de  fee  y  concernientes  a  ella  con  todo  lo  demas 
de  que  necesita  para  su  recto  y  libre  ejercicio  directa  6  indirectamente 
pertenece  al  derecho  divino,  y  como  tal  se  sobrepone  a  todo  derecho 
humano  y  de  las  gentes  y  no  esta  sugeto  a  fueros  ni  leyes  humanas,  y 
lo  menos  que  se  puede  decir  es  que  los  principes  seculares  tienen 
obligacion  de  darsela  como  queda  dicho,  y  aunque  estos  tengan  derecho 
para  que  la  que  se  tomare  6  diere  no  sea  mas  que  la  que  es  menester, 
el  juicio  y  arbitrio  de  la  necesidad  y  de  la  extencion  6  limitacion  de 
aquella  pertenece  a  aquel  en  quien  reside  la  dicha  potestad  eclesiastica 
suprema,  porque  funda  la  que  tiene  en  el  derecho  divino  y  no  es  posible 
que  sallia  la  pure^a  de  la  fe  y  la  obediencia  y  rendimiento  que  los 
principes  deben  a  la  Iglesia  y  a  su  cabe^a  sientan  diferentemente  de 
lo  que  aqui  se  dice,  porque  es  el  comun  y  verdadero  sentir  de  los 
autores  catolicos  y  lo  que  pide  la  subordinacion  de  los  derechos  humanos 
a  los  divinos  y  de  los  temporales  a  los  espirituales  de  lo  cual  se  infiere 
que  el  entendimiento  verdadero  del  axioma  6  modo  de  hablar  referido 


DOCUMENTS 


615 


se  ha  de  restringir  al  uso  de  las  jurisdicciones  temporales  que  estan  en 
una  niisma  linea  cuando  no  compiten  lo  divino  con  lo  hmnano  ni  lo 
espiritual  con  lo  temporal,  porque  estas  y  otras  regalias  temporales 
como  ellas  son  tan  inherentes  a  la  potestad  regia  que  no  se  puede 
desnudar  dellas  ni  enagenarles  enteramente. 

Sefior,  todos  estos  principios  son  los  solidos  y  seguros  y  hay  en  esta 
materia  con  que  los  senores  reyes  progenitores  de  V.  M.  se  han  con- 
formado  asi  en  el  sentir  como  en  el  obrar  y  los  autores  regnicolas  de  la 
corona  han  sentido  y  escrito  en  la  misma  conformidad  y  todo  lo  que 
sale  de  estos  terminos  con  las  doctrinas  nuevas  que  pretenden  que 
V.  M.  es  duefio  absoluto  de  esta  jurisdiccion  con  facultad  plena  de 
disponer  en  ella  para  quitarla  es  incierto,  mal  seguro  para  la  conciencia, 
en  nada  convenientc  para  el  Estado  y  muy  pehgroso  el  uso  de  ello  no 
solo  de  caer  en  hierros  gravisimos,  que  despues  no  tengan  reparo  sino 
de  que  Dios  nuestro  senor,  cuia  gloria  es  la  mas  interesada  en  el  libre 
y  recto  ejercicio  de  la  inquisicion,  agraviado  de  lo  que  en  esto  se  innovare, 
execute  como  suele  castigos  graves  en  los  que  pretenden  estas  mudangas 
que  se  apetecen  con  titulo  de  Hbertad  a  que  aspiran  siempre  los  reinos 
y  son  medio  para  perderlos,  y  quiera  Dios  que  no  sea  una  de  las  causas 
porque  padece  la  Corona  de  Aragon  tantos  trabajos  con  la  hostilidad 
de  los  que  injustamente  la  pretenden  usurpar,  el  no  acabar  de  quietarse 
en  las  materias  tocantes  a  la  inquisicion,  pretendiendo  siempre  intro- 
ducir  novedades  en  ella,  conque  no  solo  se  desagrada  a  Dios  nuestro 
Senor  sino  se  ofende  al  Estado  con  las  alteraciones  que  ocasionan  los 
sospechosos  en  la  fee  que  suele  ser  gente  sediciosa  de  que  el  reino  de 
Aragon  tiene  ejemplos  presentes  cuyos  danos  no  se  pudieran  atajar 
sino  es  por  medio  de  la  Inquisicion.     .     .     . 

(Siguen  otras  razones  que  aclaran  lo  que  la  inquisicion  pretende 
demostrar,  las  cuales  razones  en  sustancia  son) 

3*  Que  la  jurisdiccion  de  la  inquisicion  es  espiritual  y  no  pueden 
modificarla  el  rey  y  las  cortes  sin  el  consentimiento  del  Inquisidor 
General. 

4*  Que  por  su  condicion  de  espiritual  la  inquisicion  esta  sobre  los 
fueros;  los  derechos  con  que  la  inquisicion  usa  de  la  dicha  jurisdiccion 
son  superiores  a  las  fueros  e  independientes  de  ellos.     .     .     . 

6*  Que  si  los  brazos  se  obstinaban  en  no  admitir  las  razones  alegadas 
por  la  Inquisicion  S.  M.  debia  como  el  emperador  Carlos  V  hizo  en 
otras  cortes  el  ano  1516  {sic)  acordarse  de  su  alma  y  conciencia  y  pre- 
ferir  la  perdida  de  parte  de  sus  reinos  a  consentir  en  nada  contra  la 
honra  de  Dios  y  en  diminucion  y  desautoridad  del  Santo  Oficio  que 
tanto  los  catolicos  rey  y  reyna  sus  abuelos  en  sus  testamentos  y  pos- 
trimeras  voluntades  lo  dexaron  caramente  encomendado.      .     .     . 

El  obispo  de  Plasencia,  inquisidor  general  y  este  Consejo  suplicamos 
a  V.  M.  se  sirva  mandar  se  haga  assi  como  lo  pedimos  en  las  dichas 
eonsultas  con  ponderacion  de  tantas  y  tan  solidas  ragones  como  en 


>y 


616 


APPENDIX 


ellas  se  proponen,  excluyendo  las  pretensiones  de  los  quatro  bragos  y 
manteniendo  d  la  Inquisicion  en  el  derecho  que  tiene  y  en  la  posesion 
en  que  esta  de  que  toda  su  jurisdiccion  sea  tratada  en  aquel  reino  de 
Aragon  como  eclesiastica  y  secular  y  la  mas  alta  de  todas  como  deri- 
vada  del  derecho  divino  en  que  la  Iglesia  funda  la  suya,  para  eonocer 
de  las  causas  de  la  fe,  y  para  que  no  le  falten  los  ministros  necesarios 
con  la  independencia  que  ha  menester  para  el  recto  y  libre  ejercicio 
de  la  dicha  jurisdiccion,  y  aunque  presumimos  que  los  dichos  brazos, 
vistas  las  dichas  razones,  mostraran  su  fidelidad  a  Dios  y  a  V.  M.  para 
contentarse  del  acuerda  que  se  tomare,  si  todavia  persistieren  en  sus 
pretensiones  negando  los  servicios  que  se  les  piden  V.  M.  debe  preferir 
el  de  Dios  en  que  consiste  el  reinar  y  ordenara  en  todo  lo  que  fuere  del 
suyo.    Madrid  a  5  de  Mayo  de  1646. 


XVI. 

Decree  of  Philip  IV  concerning  Disobedience,  March  26,  1633. 

■  (Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  32,  fol.  56). 

(See  p.  347). 

Uno  de  los  may  ores  danos  y  de  que  han  resultado  may  ores  incon- 
venientes,  en  grave  deservicio  mio  y  de  la  quietud  y  conservacion  de 
todos  mis  reinos,  es  el  de  la  inobservancia  y  dilacion  en  la  ejecucion  de 
mis  ordenes,  pues  importa  poca  resolverlas  si  no  se  envian  y  ejecutan  a 
tiempo,  pues  pasada  la  sazon  viene  a  ser  infructuoso  todo  lo  que  se 
dispone,  de  que  se  han  seguido  danos  tan  irreparables  que  quiza  son 
la  parte  principal  del  apretado  estado  en  que  nos  hallamos;  diversos 
recursos  y  advertencias  he  hecho  a  mis  consejeros  sobre  esto  y  signi- 
ficado  con  vivo  sentimiento  el  dano  y  encargado  el  reparo  y  aunque 
entiendo  que  en  todos  mis  ministros  debe  ser  igual  a  sus  obligaciones 
la  atencion  y  celo  a  mi  servicio,  la  experiencia  me  ha  mostrado  que  no 
ha  bastado  esto  y  que  es  necesario  usar  de  medio  mas  eficaz  y  poderoso 
para  que  no  se  acabe  de  perder  mi  monarquia,  pues  me  corre  obligacion 
por  el  lugar  en  que  Dios  me  ha  puesto  atajar  su  total  ruina  y  entiendo 
ser  la  falta  de  obediencia  y  ejecucion  lo  que  mas  aprisa  la  puede  causar. 

Por  este  he  resuelto  dar  forma  y  regla  en  ello,  disponiendose  por 
arancel  como  se  han  de  ejecutar  mis  ordenes  y  penas  en  que  se  ha  de 
incurrir  por  la  inobservancia  de  ellas,  segun  la  calidad  de  cada  una, 
y  asi  se  formara  para  esc  Consejo  el  que  la  tocare  bien  ajustado,  y  se 
me  enviara  con  distincion  de  las  materias  de  oficio,  hacienda  y  partes 
asi  de  gracia  como  de  justicia,  y  de  las  penas  en  que  han  de  incurrir 
todos  y  se  han  de  executar  por  el  mismo  consejo  correspondientes  a  la 


DOCUMENTS  617 

calidad  de  la  inobservancia  y  omision  en  la  ejecucion,  previniendo  bien 
todos  los  casos  en  que  cada  uno  puede  faltar  y  aquellos  casos  que 
pueden  ofrecerse  y  se  ofrecen,  que  no  puedan  ser  comprendidos,  tam- 
bien  me  los  consultara  el  consejo,  porque  quiero  saber  los  que  son,  y 
los  aranceles  se  hagan  en  veinte  dias  y  se  me  envien  para  que  resuelva 
la  forma  en  que  han  de  quedar  ajustados  y  se  publiquen. 

(RUBRICA   DEL   Rey). 

En  San  Lorenzo  a  15  de  Octubre  de  1633. 
Al  Arzobispo  inquisidor  general. 


XVII. 

Proclamation  on  the  Arrival  of  an  Inquisitor. 

(Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  31,  fol.  194). 
(See  p.  351). 

PREGON. 

Ahora  oid  que  se  os  hace  saber  a  todo  hombre  generalmente  del 
parte  del  ilustrisimo  y  reverendisimo  senor  Don  Antonio  de  Zuniga, 
prior  de  Castilla  del  Orden  de  San  Juan  de  Jerusalem,  Capitan  y 
lugarteniente  general  de  la  sacra  cesarea  magestad  en  el  Principado  de 
Cataluna  y  Condado  de  Rosellon  y  Cerdena,  que  como  a  su  ilustrisima 
y  reverendisima  sefioria  y  Real  Consejo  se  hayan  presentado  por  el 
procurador  fiscal  del  oficio  de  la  sancta  inquisicion  unas  letras  o  pro- 
visiones  patentes  de  la  prefata  cesarea  magestad  y  con  su  real  sella 
sellada  otorgadas  al  muy  venerable  religioso  y  amado  del  senor  Rey 
Fray  Juan  Naverdu  maestro  en  sacra  teologia  del  orden  de  predica- 
dores,  inquisidor  de  la  heretica  y  apostatica  pravedad  en  el  Principado 
de  Cataluna  y  a  los  ministros  del  dicho  sancto  oficio  en  y  con  las  quales 
entre  las  otras  cosas  por  los  respectos  y  causas  en  las  dichas  provisiones 
contenidas  su  Cesarea  magestad  manda  con  grandes  penas  al  dicho 
senor  lugarteniente  general  y  otros  oficiales  de  Cataluna  asi  mayores 
como  menores  que  cada  y  quando  que  el  dicho  venerable  inquisidor 
y  los  otros  oficiales  y  ministros  del  dicho  sancto  oficio  para  exercer  sus 
oficios  demandaren  6  alguno  de  ellos  demandare  auxilio  lo  haya  de 
prestar  y  los  dichos  sus  oficios  permitan  libremente  exercitar  sin 
impedimento  alguno,  y  demandando  el  auxilio  del  brazo  seglar  incon- 
tienti  lo  hayan  de  dar,  tomando  y  prendiendo  qualesquier  personas  que 
por  el  dicho  venerable  inquisidor  fueren  nombradas  y  aquellas  empris- 
ionar  y  tener  presas  y  haberlas  de  las  jurisdicciones  de  qualesquier 


gj^g  APPENDIX 

personas  adonde  el  dicho  inquisidor  quisiere  y  mudar  aquellas  y  castigar 
y  punirlas  con  las  debidas  penas  cada  y  quando  por  el  dicho  venerable 
inquisidor  sera  declarado  y  porque  el  dicho  venerable  inquisidor  y 
otros  oficiales  y  ministros  del  dicho  sancto  oficio  mas  libre  y  segura- 
mente  puedan  ejercer  los  dichos  sus  oficios,  su  cesarea  magestad  al 
dicho  venerable  inquisidor  sus  companeros,  notario  y  alguazil  y  otros 
oficiales  y  ministros  del  dicho  sancto  oficio  famiUares  y  bienes  de  ellos 
y  qualquier  dellos  pone  y  constituye  debajo  su  especial  guiaje,  cus- 
todia,  proteccion  y  encomienda  real  segun  en  dichas  letras  y  provision 
real,  la  data  de  las  quales  fue  en  Valladolid  a  trece  del  mes  de  Febrero 
del  ano  de  la  navidad  de  Dios  nuestro  senor  mil  quinientos  y  veinta  y 
tres,  aquestas  y  otras  cosas  mas  largamente  se  contienen. 

Por  tanto  queriendo  su  ilustrisima  senoria  que  las  cosas  mandadas  y 
proveidas  por  la  sacra  cesarea  y  real  magestad  sean  a  ejecucion  devidas 
y  a  todo  hombre  manifiestas  a  su  aplicacion  del  dicho  procurador  fiscal 
del  dicho  oficio  de  lasancta  inquisicion  por  el  tenor  del  presente  pubUco 
pregon,  notificando  las  dichas  cosas  a  todo  hombre  generalmente  dice 
y  manda  su  ilustrisima  y  reverendisima  senoria  a  todos  y  qualesquier 
oficiales  ansi  mayores  como  menores  y  a  otras  y  singulares  personas 
de  qualquier  estado  dignadad  o  condicion  que  sean  que  la  dicha  y 
precalendada  letra  y  provision  real  y  todas  y  qualesquier  cosas  en  ella 
contenidas  y  expresadas  segun  mejor  y  plenamente  en  ella  se  contiene 
del  dicho  sancto  oficio  de  la  sancta  inquisicion  tengan  y  guarden  y  hagan 
tener  y  guardar  inviolablemente  segun  su  narracion  y  tenor  y  contra 
aquella  no  hagan  ni  vengan,  ni  hacer  ni  venir  permitan  en  manera 
alguna  si  desean  no  incurrir  en  las  penas  en  dicha  y  precalendada  real 
provision  contenidas,  y  porque  alguna  no  pueda  de  dichas  cosas  allegar 
ignorancia,  manda  su  ilustrisima  y  reverendisima  senoria  el  presente 
ser  publicada  por  los  lugares  acostumbrados  y  guardase  quien  se  ha  de 
guardar. 

El  Prior  de  Castilla. 

Vidit  Joannes  de  Cardona,  Cancellarius. 

Vidit  Jacobus  Ferrer,  Registrator  Thesaurarius. 

Gundisalbus  de  Cabra. 

Registrata  in  curia  locumtenentis. 


PUBLICACIONES  DE  LOS  PREGONES. 

Fue  publicado  el  presente  publico  pregon  por  los  lugares  acostum- 
brados de  Barcelona  por  mi  Canals  en  lugar  de  Francisco  de  Sevia  con 
son  de  quatro  trompetas  a  veinte  y  tres  de  Diciembre  de  mil  quinientos 
y  veinte  y  tres.  Canals. 


DOCUMENTS  619 


XVIII. 

Memoria  de  la  Reforma  de  Ministros  del  Santo  Oficio  que  hizo 
hacer  el  rey  en  1646. 

(Biblioteca  Nacional  de  Madrid,  Seccion  de  MSS.  D  118,  and  S  294 

fol.  122). 
(See  p.  461). 

En  las  ultimas  cortes  que  se  celebraron  en  Aragon  el  ano  pasado  de 
1646,  fue  servido  su  Magestad  (Dios  le  guarde)  de  aminorar  el  numero 
de  familiares  que  conforme  a  fueros  de  aquel  Reyno  podia  haver, 
extinguiendole  a  solo  numero  de  400,  caviendo  mas  de  2000  en  lo 
antiguo,  y  que  se  practicava  como  consta  largamente  por  la  concordia 
antigua  entre  el  Reyno  y  la  Inquisicion.  Quitoles  assimismo  las  exemp- 
ciones  de  que  gozaban  dichos  familiares  en  la  forma  que  tanvien  consta 
por  los  nuebos  cabos  donde  se  puede  veer.  Instaron  sobre  esto  con 
apretadissimos  esfuerzos  los  quatro  brazos  de  dichas  cortes  y  entre 
ellos  algunos  ministros  de  Inquisicion  (que  aun  no  vasto  el  serlo  para 
que  dejasen  de  manifestar  el  odio  comun  que  contra  ella  y  sus  actiones 
tienen).  Conociaselo  su  Magestad  y  antes  de  concederles  cosa  alguna 
que  tocase  a  la  Inquisicion  (de  quien  dijo  era  las  ninas  de  sus  ojos) 
les  mando  6  pidio  la  dejasen  en  el  estado  que  estava,  y  que  como  no  le 
llegasen  a  ella  concederia  todo  lo  demas  que  pretendian,  haciendo 
assimismo  mercedcs  particulares  a  los  Aragoneses,  como  con  efecto 
les  hifo  mas  de  trecientas  y  sesenta  que  se  publicaron  en  un  dia,  nom- 
brandolas  y  las  personas  a  quien  las  hacia.  Nada  de  esto  vasto  para 
que  dejasen  de  replicar  con  una  y  otra  embaxada  por  parte  de  los 
brazos,  deteniendo  a  su  Magestad  dos  6  tres  dias  en  el  conbento  de 
Santa  Engracia  de  Zaragoza,  estando  el  coche  a  la  puerta  para  venirse 
a  Madrid,  hasta  que  viendo  su  pertinacia  y  que  sin  duda  le  detendrian 
mas  sin  concluir  el  solio  en  las  Cortes  que  era  lo  que  esperava,  les  con- 
cedio  todo  lo  que  en  esta  parte  quisieron.  Quedaron  los  Aragoneses 
muy  contentos,  pareciendoles  haver  vencido  lo  mas  y  que  ya  le  faltava 
al  Rey  el  unico  recursso  que  tenia  en  aquel  Reyno.  Desde  este  dia  fue 
postrandose  la  autoridad  y  mucha  estimacion  que  la  Inquisicion  tenia 
en  Aragon,  excediendo  en  esta  parte  a  otros,  pues  tal  vez  miraban  a 
un  Inquisidor  con  mas  veneracion  que  al  Ar^obispo  y  Virrey  y  oy  se 
vee  lo  contrario  y  aun  se  oye  que  algunos  dicen  ya  se  acabo  la  Inqui- 
sicion. Experimentase  esto  cada  dia  en  los  ministros  de  ella,  pues, 
siendo  conforme  a  las  hordinaciones  del  Reyno  que  ningun  vecino 
aloje  en  su  casa  mas  que  un  soldado,  no  excediendo  el  numero  de  ellos 
al  de  los  vecinos,  no  solo  le  hechan  al  familiar  el  que  le  podia  tocar  sino 
tuviese  exempcion  alguna,  pero  porque  es  familiar  le  hechan  dos  o  tres. 


620 


APPENDIX 


Muchos  se  an  que j ado  de  este  agravio  al  Tribunal,  y  por  escusar 
enpenos  6  lo  que  podia  resultar  y  se  a  tornado  por  expediente  suabe 
escrivir  al  Comisario  de  la  villa  6  lugar  donde  se  hace  el  agravio,  hable 
con  el  Justicia  6  Jurados  de  el,  y  que  con  buen  modo  les  de  a  entender 
que  no  se  deve  hacer  ni  pasar  por  aquello,  y  aunque  algunos  an  tenido 
atencion  a  ello  a  otros  les  a  faltado,  y  tal  vez  6  los  mas  a  sido  necesario 
no  darse  el  Tribunal  por  entendido  6  tolerado,  mirando  al  estado  en 
que  se  alia,  y  tanvien  a  los  ahogos  que  tiene  el  Reyno  con  los  aloja- 
mientos.  Hacen  contribuyr  a  los  familiares  en  los  Vagajes  y  reparti- 
mientos  concejiles  y  que  no  son  concejiles,  y  ultimamente  se  vee  y  toca 
con  las  manos  que  en  todo  lo  que  no  es  negocio  de  fee  tiene  postradas 
las  fuerzas  antiguas  el  Tribunal  de  Aragon. 


XIX. 

Decree  of  Philip  III  on  Quarrels  between  Bishops  and  Inquis- 
itors. 

(Archive  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  29,  fol.  177). 
(See  p.  497). 

He  mandado  escribir  estas  cartas  que  aqui  decis,  pero,  porque  se  ha 
visto  y  vee  cada  dia  que  las  Inquisiciones  particulares  se  meten  en 
cossas  que  derechamente  no  toe  an  a  la  fe  ni  al  Santo  Oficio  sino  solo 
a  estender  y  ampliar  su  jurisdiccion  por  fines  particulares  de  que  han 
resultado  todas  las  dificultades  y  encuentros  que  ha  avido  entre  las 
Inquisiciones  y  los  perlados  y  entretanto  que  esto  no  se  remediare 
nunca  dejara  de  averlas.  Sera  bien  y  assi  os  lo  encargo  que  procureis 
componer  esto  de  manera  que  los  Inquisidores  no  se  metan  en  mas  de 
lo  que  les  toca  y  que  al  mismo  tiempo  que  yo  mandare  escribir  a  los 
obispos  escribais  vos  a  las  Inquisiciones  que  por  ningun  casso  se  metan 
en  cossa  que  derechamente  no  les  toque,  apercibiendoles  que  no  sola- 
mente  no  lo  consentireis  pero  que  castigareis  a  los  que  hicieren  lo 
contrario  con  demonstracion  de  rigor,  y  si  excedieren  no  os  contenteis 
con  reprehenderlos  blandamente  sino  que  con  effecto  los  castigueis, 
porque  con  esto  se  justificara  lo  que  yo  escribiere  a  los  perlados  y  ellos 
se  acomodaran  a  lo  que  fuere  justo,  y  de  otra  manera  tendran  ocasion 
de  acudir  a  mi  por  el  remedio  de  sus  agravios,  lo  cual  es  necesario  que 
se  escuse. 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  MODERN 

HISTORY 

PLANNED   BY 

THE  LATE  LORD  ACTON,  LL.D. 

Jitgius  Professor  of  Modern  History  in  the  University  of  Cambridge 

EDITED  BY 

A.  W.  WARD,  Litt.D.,  G.  W.  PROTHERO,  Litt.D. 
and   STANLEY  LEATHES,    M.A. 

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THE  SCOPE  OF  THE  WORK  AS  PROJECTED   WILL  INCLUDE 

VII.  The  United  States 
VIII.  The  French  Revolution 
IX.  Napoleon 

X.  Restoration  and  Reaction 
XI.  The  Growth  of  Nationalities 
XII.  The  Latest  Age 


I.  The  Renaissance 
II.  The  Reformation 

III.  The  Wars  of  Religions 

IV.  The  Thirty  Years'  War 
V.  Bourbons  and  Stuarts 

VI.  The  Eighteenth  Century 


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needless  details,  though  here  and  there  an  additional  fact  would  have  made  the  whole  more 
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"The  author  is  John  Holland  Rose,  the  well-known  English  historian,  and  his  biography 
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Napoleon  is,  to  Mr.  Rose,  neither  a  demi-god  nor  an  ogre,  but  a  wonderfully  brilliant  man, 
whose  complete,  but  on  the  whole,  attractive  personality  is  made  the  subject  of  a  penetratmg 
and  luminous  psychological  study."  —  The  Philadelphia  Press. 


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